24 replies to this topic

[Franklin]

following on that complaint thread about whinging design clients a little while ago ...

My website was just designed and while it was being coded the coder sent a message to the designer and cc'd to me, "hey this online-submit referral form looks shit how about we make it look nicer." So the coder made it look nicer and we all shook hands/high-five'd.

So that was last week and I'm testing the site today and realize that the online-submit referral is wicked BUT the downloadable form is still the old shit looking one. I ask the design company and they're like "sure we can .pdf that but it'll cost 300 dollars."

lol right? I'm not exactly sure what's involved but even if they were making it from scratch I wouldn't think it'd cost that much. I had my lawyer draw up a special contract-type document last week for under 300, and in this case all they have to do is convert that thing into a .pdf.

So that's what I went back to them with and the dude was like "ok Franklin we can do it for $200 to fit your budget better"

Now I'm thinking holy fuck I'm not sure I trust a company that can willy nilly just cut 33% off of a service. It really makes me feel like they were trying to gouge me with the 300.

what say you?

[underscore]

Not sure I understand this correctly, but are all you wishing them to do is make a PDF of content (the online submission form) that exists on your site? If so $200 for that sounds fucking brutal.

Edited by underscore, 07 May 2012 - 04:38 PM.

[Ego]

I'm guessing they'd have to redo the form for print because the webform is at low DPI? If it's just putting the online form in a PDF file €200 is still steep.

Edited by Ego, 07 May 2012 - 04:43 PM.

[iep]

i emphatically say skip it, you aren't enthousiastic about the pdf's in the first place.

or you would have done it yourself.

already.

[sidewinder]

If you're not in the business you can't have any idea what it takes to do something. Just like me not being an auto mechanic can't (usually) laugh at a quote I'm given for repairs to a car.

Turning a Word doc into a PDF? Sure that takes seconds and you could have done that yourself and sent the PDF to the developers to put on the site. It sounds to me like they would be taking an online form (html) and making a nice-looking PDF of it for download. Anything that would automate that would surely produce shit. So the designers/developers are most likely quoting you for creating a custom PDF design based on the online version. I can't be sure because you didn't provide details. Sounds to me like a typical "client thinks this is simple because they're not considering all the steps" scenario.

When you balked at the price and they offered to do it within your budget, they may have found a solution that would eliminate some of the work (reduced quality for a lower budget, totally normal) or simply were willing to take a cut in order to make the customer happy. Not too uncommon either.

It sounds like creating the downloadable version wasn't in the project scope, although maybe they should have asked you up front if you'd also like to update that to look better (which would of course have cost you more at that time also).

Of course I know nothing about your project and how awesome or not awesome it is, or how awesome or not awesome the desigers/developers are. These things play a role in this situation too.

In the end, you get what you pay for. If you're going to be cheap and not consider your website an investment, it could end up being crap and not get you the business you'd like.

Edited by sidewinder, 07 May 2012 - 05:37 PM.

[Franklin]

I'm guessing they'd have to redo the form for print because the webform is at low DPI? If it's just putting the online form in a PDF file €200 is still steep.

Ya you're probably right. I'm not sure how that works. the referral form is literally 2 double-spaced Word pages with a bunch of fillable spaces for doctors/psychs to fill out.

Even if they had to input it all over again into a diff. program and then make it a .pdf I'm still thinking 300 is really steep but I'm not a designer.

Maybe they're charging me so steep because that's not their bread and butter shit? am I asking the wrong people?

[cult fiction]

Open in Safari -> Print -> save as PDF. If all you want is a static PDF dump of the web form, that's it.

There is no such thing as low DPI for an HTML form unless it's an image.

If you want to have editable text in your pdf you'll need a PDF editor. You could probably buy Adobe Acrobat for the same price they want to charge you and use it forever. Or you could try one of the online editors(most of which seem a bit shady).

[jules]

sounds expensive considering the page exists. if it is just text, there is no resolution to worry about. unless they have to lay it out instead of it being coded but that should be quick. not seeing it, I couldn't say for sure but it sounds expensive. do you have a link or screenshot?

[Bubba69]

that kind of shit happens for the company I work for all the time. We will add a really simple feature into our product for like $150 or something, but if they whine enough, we might do it anyways, or do it even cheaper. I kind of depends, we are really busy, but if we can find time we'll discount it. You gotta keep things business or else the requests will never stop and you will never make any money.

What I mean is like changing a word, or adding a tool-tip, simple shit. The big customizations cost big money.

Edited by Bubba69, 07 May 2012 - 06:31 PM.

[Franklin]

ya bubba I have already paid them $100 for shit like changing the email address (office@appianway to franklin@appianway) and $100 for changing the address of the company in the header for word files etc.

I fully realize that companies gotta make money but I just kinda flipped with the 300 b/c it was the coder who made the form in the first place not even them... oh and I didn't maybe explain that the coder does NOT work for that company. I also figured that they would have made the referral form look nice in the first place while they were making the site but they just copied my shitty hand-done one but took the time to make it fillable etc. I have pretty high standards maybe I don't know.
below is what I made myself
 refexample.png   44.88KB   36 downloads
this one is the one the coder came up with
 form-2.jpg   69.18KB   37 downloads

[sidewinder]

So you're comparing a PDF with an HTML entry form that submits the results via email to someone (probably you). These are two different things. If you provide your PDF version to a web design/development company and ask them to make it work online, it make sense that the second graphic is what you end up with as a result.

If you ask that they still make the PDF available to users who do not wish to fill out the form online, it makes sense that your original form is what they would link to, unless you asked them to create a nicer looking one as part of the scope.

Do you know what they intend to deliver for that $300? In a designer or developer's mind, it's not logical to simply take the exact look of the online form and make a print version of it. There's web design and there's print design, they are two different approaches. So if this form is for print, they're probably charging to create a more print-friendly version for you. Might seem a bit expensive but again like I said before, depends on the skill level of these people. Is it a company? Is it a freelancer? Etc. Do you know their hourly rate? I would expect the company I work for to charge about that much for the task. Of course we also wouldn't do just a web form and PDF for someone, as we only work with $10,000 or higher budgets. We'd do a small project like that for an existing client, of course, but not a new one. Too much overhead for such a small task.

[Enter a new display name]

gay

[roasty]

i'll do it for $40

[Joyrex]

After reading what you have posted about this company, 100$ to change an email address is ridiculous - that's a change a coder (or even a designer just getting into HTML) could do in about a minute or two, especially if it's only changing the link on the site and not actually changing the name of a mailbox on your web server/hosting provider. Now, if they had to change the mailbox name on the server, then I could understand the costs involved.

I do stuff like this at my job all the time, and have been doing it for the better part of a decade, so I'm well aware of how long it should take to do things like this.

300 for the PDF would be justifiable IF it's an interactive PDF, where users can fill out the form fields similar to how they can fill out the web-based form. If it's just something they drew up in Adobe Illustrator and saved to PDF, I would probably charge around 65-80 dollars, as that's about an hour of my time to do something like that. the interactive PDF form takes a bit longer, as you have to set up the form fields in the PDF and it requires using Adobe Acrobat Professional versus any program that can save out as PDF.

The biggest advantage of a interactive PDF is it allows the user to type in the information, which reduces entry errors when someone's entering into another system, and keeps the information consistent.

[mcbpete]

100$ to change an email address is ridiculous - that's a change a coder (or even a designer just getting into HTML) could do in about a minute or two ... Now, if they had to change the mailbox name on the server, then I could understand the costs involved.

300 for the PDF would be justifiable IF it's an interactive PDF, where users can fill out the form fields similar to how they can fill out the web-based form. If it's just something they drew up in Adobe Illustrator and saved to PDF, I would probably charge around 65-80 dollars

Absolutely - we're being asked to whether something is deemed fair or not with only half the information of each case ....

[Gary C]

The biggest advantage of a interactive PDF is it allows the user to type in the information, which reduces entry errors when someone's entering into another system, and keeps the information consistent.

Hero.

To explain; I started creating an online form for my work for this very reason.

I made it from HTML though. Never though about PDFs, although I would have once I considered trying to print it.

Edited by Gary C, 08 May 2012 - 07:59 AM.

[Joyrex]

The biggest advantage of a interactive PDF is it allows the user to type in the information, which reduces entry errors when someone's entering into another system, and keeps the information consistent.

Hero.

To explain; I started creating an online form for my work for this very reason.

I made it from HTML though. Never though about PDFs, although I would have once I considered trying to print it.

One neat thing you can do with form-based PDFs is have a 'submit' button that goes to a script (if your PDF is hosted say on your company's intranet or web site) that takes the form fields and sends an email, or inserts the data into a database, etc.

[Franklin]

I think I flipped originally because the company is a rather small place that only bills out $60/hour. They do awesome work (aside from the $100 email changes etc) and I've literally paid in full at whatever they've made in the past. But in this case I was just thinking to myself... geez does it take 5.5 hours to make a form like this in some sort of pdf mode? or at least does it take 3-4 hours with an extra bit for profit?

anywayz guys. they just offered to do it for 200 and I told them I'd meet them mid-way and pay 250.

On an unrelated note I paid a plumber $250 last year to install a really old style faucet that's in my basement that isn't widely available anymore. While installing it he broke one of the new handles and replaced it with a flimsy blue plastic handle that you see on display cases at home repair stores. I stared at him for a minute after he handed over the invoice and asked if the brand new plastic handle was free because I didnt see a charge for it, and he chuckled and said it was.

[keltoi]

they just offered to do it for 200 and I told them I'd meet them mid-way and pay 250.

lol that's not how haggling works

[modey]

If it's just something they drew up in Adobe Illustrator

Desigining forms using Illustrator?

Edited by modey, 09 May 2012 - 03:55 AM.

[Joyrex]

If it's just something they drew up in Adobe Illustrator

Desigining forms using Illustrator?

A form that doesn't use traditional inputs (rather just a line for where you write in your response) - what program would you use to get a clean, resolution-independent printable version?

I suppose you could use InDesign or QuarkXPress, but for me Illustrator has more control over graphic elements than either of those programs (especially QXP - is it even around anymore? I'm sure Adobe has killed it with InDesign)

[mcbpete]

A form that doesn't use traditional inputs (rather just a line for where you write in your response) - what program would you use to get a clean, resolution-independent printable version?

I use this -

[modey]

If it's just something they drew up in Adobe Illustrator

Desigining forms using Illustrator?

A form that doesn't use traditional inputs (rather just a line for where you write in your response) - what program would you use to get a clean, resolution-independent printable version?

I suppose you could use InDesign or QuarkXPress, but for me Illustrator has more control over graphic elements than either of those programs (especially QXP - is it even around anymore? I'm sure Adobe has killed it with InDesign)

I've always thought that Illustrator was for exactly what it says—illustrations. Every time I've tried to lay out even the smallest amount of text, it's been an absolute nightmare (e.g. not being able to easily insert thin spaces bothers me almost every time I use it).
Setting a form in Indesign would make more sense, imo, since you can just draw one big text frame to the size of the margins and then put pretty much everything in there, including any lines or boxes as inline anchored objects—that way everything moves with the text if any additional lines are added. I designed a lot of forms this way when I worked in printing.

[kaen]

tell them to fuck off, you could teach yourself how to do it in about an hour.

[modey]

tell them to fuck off, you could teach yourself how to do it in about an hour.

yeah but it'll look like shit!