Adding a Text Field to inline text

Question

Using Adobe LifeCycle Designer, I'm wondering if there's an easy way to insert substitution text. I need to do this:
"Thank you for your recent donatoin of ${Amount}. We would like..."
The above example uses a floating field, but this type of object (or placeholder) is not available as an AcroForm variable (using iText). Thus far it appears that my only option is to use a Text Box but this seems VERY clunky because it's nearly impossible to visually line up the text box properly, plus, it doesn't size the sentence to the right -- i.e., it just sits on top of the text.
What am I missing? My needs, to me, seem VERY simple but I can't seem to figure out how to make this work.

Answer 1

I really wish I could agree with you because I REALLY want this to work. This is the ONLY thing keeping me from using Adobe. However, it's becoming clear that I'll have to scrap all the research I've done because I need to find a completely new solution (outside of Adobe Acrobat).<br /><br />I believe we need to think Post PDF Creation and Pre PDF rendering. Say a PDF is just sitting there in a folder. It has AcroForm variables in it -- Cool! This means I can fetch those variables, load them with whatever data I want, copy the PDF and wala! I have a new PDF with complete data and I've preserved my template PDF for another day.<br /><br />A floating field is dissolved the moment you click <Save> in Adobe LC. Binding happens right then. This means when it is rendered in a Reader the data is already there and if that data happens to be a script the script behaves accordingly. None of this works for me.<br /><br />One way to think of this is that the actual "text" in a PDF is fully compiled/flattened while AcroForm variables are uncompiled and dimensional. I can pop data in the AcroForm variables but whatever I do with these variables, it has no bearing on the compiled text.<br /><br />This means compiled text cannot interact with an AcroForm variable (i.e., it can't adjust left and right to size properly to an AcroForm variable).<br /><br />I find this lack of functionality to be surprising.