markup for a printable form

[Brian]

I have an entry form for a baking contest.

http://www.tsmchughs.com/events/contest/entry

It is not an http form; it is meant to be printed out, filled out, and
physically submitted with the entry (that is, the soda bread). I
didn't know how to do it. I decided to offer plain text and MS Word
variants. I then inserted the plain text version inside a <pre>
element for the html version. Is there a more meaningful way to mark
up the form?

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Brian <us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote:

http://www.tsmchughs.com/events/contest/entry

It is not an http form; it is meant to be printed out, filled out,
and physically submitted with the entry

So don't use form markup - it would just mislead the user, who might
try to fill it out and look for a submit button.

You could use some simple tables, with borders, and with empty cells
reserved for the data to be filled out.

You might consider offering plain text, Word, and PDF versions too,
since they would let the user fill out the form on computer and produce
better quality as compared with handwritten text. But it's not a big
issue, and for a small amount of data, just printing the document and
writing with a pen is probably easiest.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Brian]

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Brian wrote:

http://www.tsmchughs.com/events/contest/entry

it is meant to be printed out, filled
out, and physically submitted with the entry
So don't use form markup - it would just mislead the user,

Of course. I used <pre> instead.
You could use some simple tables, with borders, and with empty
cells reserved for the data to be filled out.
That's an idea I hadn't thought of.
You might consider offering plain text, Word,
Already done.
and PDF versions
I don't have the software for that.
too, since they would let the user fill out the form on computer
and produce better quality as compared with handwritten text. But
it's not a big issue, and for a small amount of data, just printing
the document and writing with a pen is probably easiest.

Thanks for your input.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Neal]

On Mon, 19 Jan 2004 17:30:58 GMT, Brian
<us*****@julietremblay.com.invalid-remove-this-part> wrote:

I have an entry form for a baking contest.

http://www.tsmchughs.com/events/contest/entry

It is not an http form; it is meant to be printed out, filled out, and
physically submitted with the entry (that is, the soda bread). I didn't
know how to do it. I decided to offer plain text and MS Word variants. I
then inserted the plain text version inside a <pre> element for the html
version. Is there a more meaningful way to mark up the form?

If it were me, I'd just format a plaintext version and save it as .txt as
a lot of users don't have Word and don't want to d/l the reader. Except I
don't know if Mac users can handle txt.

Is there a reason you can't make a print stylesheet for this page which
will just print out the instructions and the form?

[Brian]

Neal wrote:

Brian wrote:

http://www.tsmchughs.com/events/contest/entry

I decided to offer plain text and MS Word variants. I then
inserted the plain text version inside a <pre> element for the
html version. Is there a more meaningful way to mark up the form?
If it were me, I'd just format a plaintext version and save it as
.txt

Already done. (I did mention that in the op! There it is above: "I
decided to offer plain text and MS Word variants. I then inserted the
plain text version...." That and the MS Word versions are linked from
the .html version.
Is there a reason you can't make a print stylesheet for this page
which will just print out the instructions and the form?

I can do that, and *did* to that. The print stylesheet is already
there, the .html version is already there. The question is *how* do I
mark up the form. At the moment, I used the text version inside a
<pre> element, e.g.,

<PRE>
Name __________________________________________________ ______

Address___________________________________________ ___________

City__________________________________State_____Zi p__________
</PRE>

Is there a better way? Jukka Korpela suggested the possibility of
using a table. I think, given the simplicity, I'll probably stick with
what I've got.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/