PDF Contracts

You can create a printable PDF document from any of your existing contracts, such as your adoption or foster contracts, or your equipment loaner contract.  

PDF Contracts is a feature that takes information from your submitted forms and adds it to a PDF document. This information can include animal information like name, age, breed, and information about adopters like name, address, contact information, as well as other information of your choice.

To use the pdf contract feature, your organization needs to have either the Website Service or the Online Forms Service and must first create an Online Form.


Please note that because RescueGroups.org must set up this feature for you, adding or updating PDF contracts can take a couple of weeks depending on any changes that are required and our current workload.

We can provide the information necessary for you to update your PDF files yourself for the contract if you have the full version of Adobe Acrobat. The updated files would be sent to our support staff and uploaded to your organization account.


PDF Contract Setup

RescueGroups.org sets up this feature for you. We take an existing PDF or a Word document and create the required PDF form. We may ask for a small fee depending on the complexity of your contract or the frequency of changes.

Due to the time involved in updating contracts for our team, we cannot provide contract updates on more than an annual basis with exceptions for major organization changes at your rescue.

Here are some guidelines for creating a Word or PDF document that RescueGroups.org can use as a PDF contract:

  • To populate the PDF contract with the animal's information, you must create a question on your Online Form with the "Answer Type", Available Animals. 

  • Use a single blank field for dates and phone numbers.

  • To include a field for gender or age, create it as a fill-in-the-blank field: Sex ____ or Age ____.  We can't use sex or age fields that are written like this:  Male: XX  Female: __.  

  • See the available fields section below so that you can create your contract using those fields.

We can include journal entries in a large blank space.  We can group them by category, but we cannot separate specific journal entries (like vaccinations) into their own fields.

If you'd like to get started setting up a PDF contract, email your Word or PDF document to our customer support (support@rescuegroups.org) and we'll take a look. We'll let you know if there is anything in your contract that needs to change before we can use it as a PDF Contract.

IMPORTANT

Any changes to the contract once it is created must go through RescueGroups.org support for the PDF Contract to be updated. Depending on the complexity and frequency of your changes, this may incur a minimal fee. In addition, we typically limit contract changes to once annually per account. 

Available fields for contracts

Below are the fields available to add to your contract, separated into categories. The field name should be straight forward. The description/source column lists the source where the information in a completed form will be pulled. For instance, see adopter_address. You use the Street, City, State, and Zip code fields. The completed form for a specific contract will combine these to create an address string such as 123 Apple St Littletown GA 31002 (no punctuation will be added in this string).  

Contact-related fields

 The following fields are available for adding to your PDF contract.

Field name

Description / source

adopter_firstname

The adopter's first name from the adopter's contact record

adopter_lastname

The adopter's last name from the adopter's contact record

adopter_name

First and Last from the adopter's contact record

adopter_address

Street, city, state and zipcode concatenated together with spaces

ex: 123 Apple St Littletown GA 31002

adopter_street

The street address only

ex: 123 Apple St

adopter_city

City

adoption_fee

The adoption fee for animal.

adopter_city_state_postalcode

Returns a value like:  Toronto, ON M7A

adopter_state

State

adopter_postalcode

Postal code (Zip code commonly used in other countries)

adopter_county

Adopter's county

adopter_email

Adopter's email address

adopter_email_alt

Adopter's alternate email address

adopter_phone_home

Home phone number

adopter_phone_work

Work phone number

adopter_phone_cell

Cell phone number

contract_date

The date the PDF contract is generated

submitted_date

The date the Online Form was submitted

Animal-related fields 

Field name

Description / source

animal_age

Age string
ex: If birthdate is provided: 2 years 1 month
If not, general age: Young

animal_altered

Spayed/neutered
Example: Yes

animal_altered_female

Contains an X for altered female

animal_altered_male

Contains an X for altered male

animal_altered_sex

Contains a combination of Unspayed, Spayed, Intact, Neutered, and Female or Male.
Examples: Unspayed Female, Intact Male

animal_birthdate

Birthdate
Ex: 5/15/2015

animal_breed

Primary breed

animal_breed_secondary

Pulled from the secondary breed field.

animal_breeds

Combination of primary, secondary, and mixed
Ex: Labrador Retriever/German Shepherd/Mixed 

animal_coatlength_long

Returns a value of X for the animal coat length field when the radio button Long is selected.


animal_coatlength_medium

Returns a value of X for the animal coat length field when the radio button Medium is selected.


animal_coatlength_short 

Returns a value of X for the animal coat length field when the radio button Short is selected.


animal_color

Color (the detailed color from the text field)

animal_color_general

Color (the drop-down color)

animal_current_size

Current size and unit of measure
Ex: 22 Pounds

animal_housebroken

Housebroken
Ex: Yes 

animal_name

Name

animal_microchip_number

Microchip number

animal_microchip_vendor

Microchip vendor / manufacturer

animal_mixed

Returns a value of Y or N. This value comes from the animal mixed field when adding/editing an animal.

animal_origin

Origin field

animal_rescueid

Rescue ID

animal_internalid

Internal ID

animal_sex

Sex
Ex: Female

animal_sexfemale
animal_sexmale 

Contains an X for the appropriate gender

animal_size

General size potential

animal_species

ex: Dog, Cat, Rabbit

animal_speciescat
animal_speciesdog
animal_speciesother 

Contains an X for the appropriate species

animal_sn

Unspayed, Spayed, Intact, Neutered

animal_declawed

Cat declawed question

animal_special_needs

Special Needs
Ex: Yes

animal_special_needs_descr

Special Needs description

animal_journal_entries

The values for animal vetting from the animal journal entries.


When using this field on a PDF contract, be sure that the form field "Options" has the "Multi-line" checkbox selected and that a large enough field space is provided to populate with the data.


Foster-related fields

Privacy Setting Warning

Please be aware, if you include foster fields, foster data will always be listed for the Contract fields if it's available in the database, regardless of the privacy setting on the Foster Contact.

Field name

Description / source

foster_firstname

The foster's first name from the foster's contact record

foster_lastname

The foster's last name from the foster's contact record

foster_name

First and Last from the foster's contact record

foster_street

The street address only

ex: 1121 Annapolis Rd 

foster_city

City

foster_state

State

foster_zipcode

Zip code ex. 01950

foster_postalcode

Postal code  (usually used in other countries)

foster_city_state_postalcode

Returns a value with city, state and postal/zip code
Ex.  Bowie, MD 20718 or Toronto, ON M7A

foster_county

Foster's county

foster_address

Foster's address

foster_email

Foster's email address

foster_email_alt

Foster's alternate email address

foster_phone_home

Home phone number

foster_phone_work

Work phone number

foster_phone_workext

Work phone extension

foster_phone_cell

Cell phone number

Create a PDF Contract for a user

Once the PDF Contract is set up for your form by RescueGroups.org support, you can create a PDF contract using the following instructions below.

Be sure that the name of the animal on the submitted online form is correct before creating a contract.

If an application is submitted with no animal name or with the wrong animal name, you will need to edit the submitted online form to set the animal name before creating the contract.


  1. Click Submitted Forms to display the list of submitted forms in your account (Features > Submitted Forms).


  2. In the list, next to the form you want converted to PDF format, then click the PDF icon.  This icon looks like a document with the corner turned down.



  3. You will see a list of fields that will be added to the contract, like below:



    Some of the values are automatically pulled from your RescueGroups.org data, but some may not be, depending on which fields you defined when we setup your contract. You can edit all values before creating the contract. For example, you could edit the Breed name or include more details about the contact.


  4. Ensure the data is what you want to include on the PDF contract. 

  5. Click Create Contract. Your web browser should open or automatically download the PDF document, which contains the autofilled field values from the specific submitted form. 

  6. When your team opens this PDF, you may be able to fill in or edit other text fields using your PDF application, if those fields were configured when your PDF Contract was first setup. Please note, If an electronic signature field was configured, you will need to use Adobe Acrobat products to complete those fields.

  7. If you would like to share a final contract at this point, you can print it now. If you want to email or save a digital copy where the form fields are not easily edited, we would suggest you use your PDF application to save a new version using an option such as "Print to PDF" option. 

  8. If you have saved a digital copy, we would suggest adding it to the appropriate Animal and/or Contact record in RescueGroups.org for your team's future reference. 

Save the PDF Contract data fields

You can save a ".FDF" data file to your computer to save the fields that were entered when the PDF was created.  The ".FDF" file contains the data that is used to fill out the form but does not contain the form (PDF) itself.  If you save the ".FDF" file to your computer and then open it at a later time, the PDF file will be downloaded from the Internet and the data from the ".FDF" file will be used to fill in the information on the form. 

Keep in mind that if you save the ".FDF" file it may be unusable at a later time if the PDF file has changed.

Troubleshooting

If you have difficulty with your PDF contract, check this troubleshooting list for help or contact support.

You continue to see an older version of your PDF even after update

Your web browser may be caching (keeping an old copy) of the previous version of the PDF file. To force your web browser to download the latest, most current version, press Control-F5 to refresh the document. Check your web browser for the exact steps to hard-refresh, or Get Support.

Error message "This PDF is attempting to launch..."

If you see this message you may need to disable Protected Mode.  Use these instructions:

  1. Open Adobe Reader.

  2. Click Edit > Preferences.

  3. Click Security (Enhanced).

  4. Deselect the checkbox for the option Enable Protected Mode at startup.

  5. Click Yes.

  6. Click OK.

  7. Close Adobe Reader.

Chrome browser issue

Viewing the PDF Contract may not work inside of Chrome until you disable the built-in PDF viewer.  There is an issue with the built-in Chrome PDF Viewer. You can disable the built-in PDF Viewer in this way:

  1. In the Chrome address bar, go to about:plugins.

  2. Click Disable next to Chrome PDF Viewer.

  3. Go back to the Submitted Forms page and generate the PDF Contract.

We recommend that you reboot after disabling the built-in Chrome PDF Viewer. There is a report that after disabling the built-in Chrome PDF Viewer a reboot may be necessary to avoid experiencing a warning in an inescapable loop.

Firefox browser issues (versions 19 and above)

Viewing the PDF Contract may not work inside of Firefox versions 19 and above because of an issue with the built-in PDF Viewer. Follow these instructions to direct Firefox to open Adobe PDF files outside of Firefox:

  1. Open Firefox.

  2. Click the Menu icon (sandwich).

  3. Click Options.

  4. In the Action column for Adobe Acrobat Forms Document (application/vnd.fdf) select Use Adobe Reader.

  5. Click OK.

Print your Contracts

You can add a pdf contract for any of your forms, including all of your applications or for your contract. Then you can print out a contract at any time. This feature is great for printing a contract before an adoption placement -- the information comes automatically from your RescueGroups.org account so you don't have to re-write it on the contract. You can use it to print any contract-type form, including volunteer contracts, home visit forms, etc.

Where do I find it?

Find the PDF Contracts icon next to the name of the online form you wish to use as a printable document. Find the document you want to print and tap the PDF icon. Print.