Bulk form creation, merge, and retrieve form data

Question

I am new to acrobat, and can't even find a place to start for what I want to accomplish.  I have a directory with 1000 single page pdfs (filenames are data_0001.pdf, data_0002.pdf, etc.).
For every single page pdf, I want to embed a form with a radio button list containing several options and a comment text box.
Every page needs a unique form ID that can be related to the original single page pdf filename.
I want to merge all the single page pdf files with the embedded form into a single multi-page pdf.
A user looks through the multi-page pdf and selects from the radio button and adds comments on every page, and saves the pdf.
I then want to export from the saved pdf a three column spreadsheet or csv file with columns
"original pdf filename" "result of radio button list" "comment text box"
I need to do this at least 100 times, so each stage needs to be scripted.
Can anyone point to a link for anything remotely close to the work flow steps needed to accomplish this with acrobat.
Thanks for any help you can provide.

Answer 1

You can use a batch process to add the form fields to each PDF. You should make the field names for each page unique, so that when you combine the individual pages into a single PDF, the form will behave properly. You can base the field names in each PDF on the original file name to achieve this. To add field with a script in a batch sequence, use the doc.addField JavaScript method: http://livedocs.adobe.com/acrobat_sdk/9.1/Acrobat9_1_HTMLHelp/JS_API_AcroJS.88.435.html
You can then combine the single page PDFs with form fields into a single PDF, either using an external script (e.g., VBScript) or a script in Acrobat, but you'd need the list of files to combine, especially if you care about the order of pages. Acrobat also has the "Files > Combine > Merge Files into Single PDF" feature, but I can't say it will work to combine that many forms at once, so you'll just have to see.
As for exporting data, This too can be scripted. I'd suggest that the script can create the data file that gets added to the document as a file attachment (data object), which can then be extracted. Creating a tab separated text file is simpler than ensuring a properly constructed CSV, so that's what I'd be inclined to do. A user is not able to enter a tab character into a form field, so you shouldn't have a problem with this. See the createDataObject documentation for more information: http://livedocs.adobe.com/acrobat_sdk/9.1/Acrobat9_1_HTMLHelp/JS_API_AcroJS.88.450.html
Good luck,
George