The ISBA Board of Governors has decided to eliminate the ISBA Portable Document Format (PDF) type forms from IowaDocs and only provide the Rich Text Format (RTF) or Microsoft Word format (DOCX), beginning July 1, 2020. IowaDocs is now 20+ years old. At the time this product was created, the PDF standard was secure and provided users with a form that had a consistent format. With advances in technology, that is no longer the case for PDF forms and for the IowaDocs product as we move forward. PDFs can be edited as easily now as a word processing document. The changes in technology include the presentation of IowaDocs as a cloud-based only product soon. As we look to that change, the PDF format isn't a great option for our users. The RTF formatted forms will look very similar to the PDF forms, and in some cases exactly the same. 

What you may notice as we move to RTFs:

• RTF forms have our logo and copyright information in the footer like the PDF versions did.

• Users that want to create a PDF version of a form can still do that - most all modern word processing applications have the ability to save/print the file as a PDF.

• RTF only library will allow users to edit the forms, easily within their favorite word processing application on their computer.  Microsoft Word¹, Corel WordPerfect², or other applications³.

• Ability for the end user to edit and create a custom form, tailor-made for their clients.

• No longer having odd addendums created in a PDF.

• Answer fields are not adjustable in the PDF which would result in odd looking forms at times because those answers were either very small, creating a lot of white space on the form; or very large, creating odd addendums on the form.

¹ Microsoft Word is the recommended word processing application to use with IowaDocs^®.

² Corel WordPerfect is no longer supported by HotDocs Developer LE; though version x4-x7 generally work currently.

³ Other word processing application like Libre Office or Google Docs will work opening the RTF's or DOCX files, however some conversion issues may arise.