I used to go insane in QuarkXPress and InDesign, selecting URLs in the text and setting up hyperlinks to web sites when I wanted the resulting PDF to have live links. Neither layout program makes it easy to do so.

A few years ago I discovered that Adobe Acrobat had a nifty "detect and convert" feature that scanned through the PDF and converted any web URL or e-mail address into a hyperlink on its own. You don't have to create links in the layout program first, just make a PDF out of the document and let Acrobat do the work.

In Acrobat Pro v7, you'll find this command at Advanced > Links > Create from URLs in Document. It's not perfect, but it does the trick for most of the links, shaving off about 80% of the time I used to spend on the task. Now I leave the linking to Acrobat whenever possible.

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Now it Finds Form Fields, Too
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I was thrilled to learn that a new feature in Acrobat 8 (Pro and 3D only) uses the same sort of "detect and convert" scan for form fields! You can design a form in your layout program (or any program, for that matter), export it to PDF, open it in Acrobat 8, and choose Forms > Run Form Field Recognition.

Acrobat searches for anything that looks like a form field (such as "Name: ___________") and adds an interactive form field on top of the underscore part. The form field is named the same thing as the text preceding the underscore ("Name" in this case) and is sized appropriately. While the form field is ready to accept data as is, you'll have to use the Form editing tools to do things like change its appearance, add actions, and so on. It can't read your mind yet … maybe in version 9.

Choosing the Run Form Field Recognition not only instantly (it's very fast) creates the fields, but it puts up a "Recognition Report" that lists all the fields it detected — each one linked to the actual field for easy selection — and includes "Hints for Repair" that explains why some of your fields may not have been detected. (It doesn't do very well with radio buttons or check boxes.)

I was spending way too much time testing the limits of Acrobat's field recognition when I happened upon Ted Padova's excellent blog entry on this very topic:
http://www.acrobatusers.com/blogs/tedpadova/?p=59

Ted Padova is the author of many of my very favorite, well-thumbed books on Acrobat, and his blog doesn't disappoint. In the entry linked to above, he shows you how you can create a layered PDF from InDesign or Illustrator (QuarkXPress can't create layered PDFs) that allows Acrobat to easily detect form fields in a "complex and graphically intense" design.

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Acrobat 3D?
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If your brain went into "whaaa?" mode above, when I said that the feature is only available in Acrobat Pro and 3D, you haven't been keeping up with the beehive of activity in Acrobat-land.

Acrobat 8 Professional and Standard are out now; the difference between the two is similar to the difference between Acro 7 Pro and Standard. Coming up in 2007, we'll also have Acrobat 8 Elements (sort of an Acrobat Light … there's an Acrobat 7 Elements out now but they only sell it in batches of 100+ seats, not sure if it'll be the same for v8) and Acrobat 8 3D (everything in Pro plus very cool 3D features specifically for CAD cutaway sorts of things.)

You can see the full glory of the Acrobat family at this feature matrix, if you're curious:
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/matrix.html