Hi.

First, you need to identify a piece of software that works on your computer that you are reasonably comfortable with. Example: Word, Wordperfect, Lotus123, various drawing and painting programs. Anyway, pick one that you have some experience with. They will all make forms, you just have to adapt your methods of constructing the forms.

Once you have selected a program, you have to do some research into what tools it offers. Can it draw lines across/down the page? Can it draw boxes or circles? Can it make a table with columns and rows? Can you 'float' text wherever you want to put it, or is it 'stuck' to the page in paragraphs and lines?

A form, at its core, is basically lines and text. If you have a text-only program, such as Notepad in windows, or some sort of text editor for Unix flavors, you can still put text and lines (underscores and pipes) on the page. A text-only form is butt-ugly, but it will still serve the purpose.

Obtaining a trainer can be difficult. People who've trained completely green folks will shy away from volunteering to be someone's encyclopedia. But you can make a form with almost anything, you just have to have a need and a little willingness to get it wrong a few times. You can teach yourself.

I trained a woman how to turn on a PC, open windows 3.1.1 from a DOS prompt, and use a mouse. I further trained her how to use MS Word to edit a document. It was a nightmare for me, I trained myself how to do all these things and expected a certain amount of curiosity from her. She didn't have it, she wanted motion-by-motion directions. After two days of training, we had to let her go--she was a temp we'd brought in to help edit documents, and she wasn't picking it up fast enough. Her level of understanding of computers was only slightly greater than my three-year-old son's. He occasionally gets lost when the mouse is oriented incorrectly on the mouse pad.

I want to help, but I can't spare the time to teach click-by-click anymore. I can only advise you to pick the tool nearest to hand and see if you can make it work. You might discover you need a screwdriver instead of a hammer, but you will grow in understanding more quickly by trying it yourself than if I told you "just click this and drag it there". It's like the difference between free weights and a weight machine. With free weights, you learn and strengthen a lot of stuff *around* the muscle you're targeting as well as the one you're focused on.

You won't be wrong in whatever you try, just be persistent, read the help, and try it out. Save often, and name each version separately so you can step back to a previous version and try again if you fudge it somehow.

shris

Once you get a design you like, the next step is learning how to do the same design on the computer
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"I think the surest sign that there is intelligent life out there in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us." (Calvin and Hobbes/Bill Waterson)

You are running a G5. Did it come with Appleworks? That is probably about the simplest app to use you could find. I would try it--use it's drawing module to get a feel for it.

However, as I Sris said, doing this takes a certain level of curiosity and willingness to "break" things--to experiment and make mistakes--which you _will_ do--we all do. Sometimes, bigger than others (I've wiped out/ruined entire projects--sometimes right at the very end--losing multiple days of effort). But the best way to learn is by the mistakes you make. If someone walks you through a process--you've learned that process, and nothing more--and chances are, you haven't even learned that process, and will need it repeated for you. This is why I say experiment.

And I agree with you somewhat about OpenOffice.org. It's quite arcane. ;-)

BTW, if you have Pages, you might try that, too...

-Jon

Hi, if you found all of the above replys interesting but of no real help to you, I am creatively stunted and technically adept at a lot of things. So with your creativity great things might happen. Post a scan of your designs and lets see what can be done with them.

Cheers.
Jules