<p>Does anybody know what software there is that can be used to type college applications that have been scanned in or are downloaded as PDFs?</p>
<p>I'm hoping that somebody out there has been down this road ahead of me.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>If files are downloaded as PDFs, you can use Adobe Acrobat to fill them in.</p>
<p>I would like to credit the poster who originally provided this information. But I saved it in a Word file and didn't note the poster. It might have been Ellen F. Anyway, many thanks to whoever it was, as the instructions were clear and idiot proof. I found, otoh, that the Adobe fill-in software worked with some pdf's and not others.
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Here's one method to fill out paper applications using a computer.</p>
<p>1) Scan the application on any standard scanner.
2) Open Word. Under format, background, watermark, set the scanned sheet as a picture watermark. Set the watermark scale to 100% and uncheck the washout box.
3) On page setup, set all margins, including the header and footer margins on the layout tab, to zero.
4) Type wherever you like.
5) Print. The result will look just like you typed the page on a typewriter. You'll have the added benefit of being able to use italics, different fonts, etc. that typewriters can't manage - plus you don't have to worry about typing errors.</p>
<p>Note: Be sure your printer will print to the edge of the page. Some will not, but most will.
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<p>I found that you have to do a little fiddling with font sizes, perhaps using different sizes for different parts of the application form, to get things to line up well. Also, it may not look quite right on your computer screen, but it prints out nicely.</p>
<p>Are there colleges out there that still only have a paper application? Wow. I thought everyone would have moved to electronic apps by this point.</p>
<p>Thanks for the information!</p>
<p>You can type on a PDF if you use Adobe Acrobat Professional. It's an expensive program, but it can do some amazing things. I like to use it to save a web article as a PDF. Or to string a bunch of PDFs into one big document.</p>
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Are there colleges out there that still only have a paper application? Wow. I thought everyone would have moved to electronic apps by this point.
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<p>I don't know if there are colleges out there that "still only have a paper application," but there are still students and even the occasional admissions officer who actually prefer paper to electronic. U of Chicago's admissions dean Ted O'Neill says his college offers electronic, but he prefers paper.</p>
<p>Personally, I think there's something to be said for paper rather than electronic. Some students are very visually attuned and they put some thought into visual presentation of their application--they care about details like fonts, and they want to be able to italicize titles of the books they discuss and put correct accent marks on foreign names. Some students have names spelled with diacritical marks and they can't even write their name properly in an electronic application. Some students are frustrated when forced to answer "Yes/No" to questions that are more complicated in their particular cases, and they'd like the ability to briefly annotate and explain with a few words rather than just checking Yes or No. </p>
<p>Electronic applications don't allow that--they force everyone into boxes--answers must fit into fields of precisely circumscribed length.</p>
<p>I've definitely had the paper vs. electronic conversation a lot in the last 5 years. I just wondered if any schools weren't offering something electronic since the original poster mentioned scanning an application.</p>
<p>A lot of schools turn your electronic apps into paper ones due to technology limitations or staff preferences. We thought we'd be saving trees, but I guess we're actually saving stamps! :)</p>
<p>I don't know whether any colleges require paper applications, but do know that some college scholarship applications come in paper form only.</p>
<p>Most of what we have seen is electronic, but with illegible writing, my son was wondering what his options were for the applications or parts of apps that are paper or pdfs.</p>