Designer vs AcroForms

Is it possible for JavaScripts that work in Acrobat forms to work in Designer forms as well?
I like the popup calendar available in Designer, and the drag-and-drop form fields, but I have lots of useful JavaScripts that work in Acrobat forms that I would like to continue using.

>Is it possible for JavaScripts that work in Acrobat forms to work in Designer forms as well?
It depends what they do. Method by method, if you analyse the script,
you will find some that work, some that don't; some with easy
equivalents, some with none.
Aandi Inston

Similar Messages

Editing PDFs in Acrobat after creation in LiveCycle

Does anyone know of a way to edit a PDF (Forms->Edit Forms in Designer), after the form has been created in LiveCycle?
-thanks

There are two fundamental architectures for forms... XFA and PDF, or what we call Acroforms.
XFA forms can only be editted in LiveCycle Designer. But the good news is that you can edit the fields and the text and page artifacts in LC Designer.
So it's not a matter of how it was generated, but what it was designed in. Once a form has been done in LC Designer (XFA/XDP) it can only be edited with LC Designer. Acroforms can be edited in Acrobat, but your changes are (primarily) limited the form fields and not the page layout.
You can get a bit of a better understanding of XFA forms from the specification. You can also get a more terse and understandable view in some older pages that describe intelligent documents. (note that these pages seem to have a formatting problem at the moment which should be fixed soon, but the text is all readable).
But, simply stated, it's a fork in the road for the two different form architectures.

Elementary Problem With Submitting A PDF Form Via Email?

Hello all!
I'm brand new to creating forms with Adobe. I have Acrobat X Pro. I have created a form with multiple fields to fill in and placed a button at the top of the form. Under button properties I selected the submit a form option under the actions tab and chose to email the entire pdf file. Where it says enter a URL for this link I put mailto: and my email address.
When I click on the submit button I choose the desktop application option as I use Outlook exchange. (that could be the problem?) I click on the ok button and immediately get a pop up box that says "Either there is no default mail client or the current mail client cannot fulfill the messaging request. Please run Microsoft Outlook and set it as the default client.
I have no idea how to fix this issue or if I'm creating the submit form improperly. My goal is to get an exact copy of the completed Adobe form emailed to the specified email address. Any help would be much appreciated!
Mike

To answer some of your specific questions:
2, 3. The submit form button needs to be on the PDF. You can either configure a Submit Form action or use the submitForm JavaScript method.
4, 6: No to both questions. You can create the form in Acrobat. Such forms are knows as Acroforms, as opposed to XFA forms that are created with LiveCycle Designer. Acroforms have wider support.
5: Yes, that's the method that's used when submitting to a web server. You have your choice of formats. The "HTML Form" option causes the form data to be submitted in the same format as an HTML form, so the same type of server-side code can be used to process the data. As Dave's tutorial shows, the server should return an FDF as the response, however, as opposed to HTML content.
It's a mistake to try to embed the PDF in a web page. So much depends on the user's browser, PDF viewer, and how both are configured. PDF forms can be submitted directly from Adobe Reader/Acrobat, so it's not necessary for them to be viewed in a browser. Note that Adobe Reader for iOS/Android don't yet support submitting to a web server (apart from FormsCentral), but that's is supposedly being worked on.
Since you mentioned digital signatures, be aware that for Reader users to be able to sign, the document has to be Reader-enabled, either with Acrobat Pro or LiveCycle Reader Extensions (which is not the same as LiveCycle Designer). Digital signatures in PDF forms are not yet supported on mobile devices. Also, you will want to submit the entire PDF, as opposed to just the form data, when submitting a digitally signed form.

Submitting a PDF form via HTTP Post: Beginner's Questions

Hi,
I am completely new to PDF forms, so I have been finding the documentation and options overwhelming.
I am hoping to get pointed to the documentation/tutorials/examples I really need.
I would like to build a "proof of concept" for my boss. I would like to include a screen in our Java ( JSP & Spring ) webapp where either a PDF form is embedded or is accessed via a link.
I have
Adobe Acrobat Distiller X standard license
Adobe Acrobat X Standard
Microsoft Office 2010
I made a small, 3 field Microsoft Word form. I then converted it via DIstiller into a PDF form.
I then found this document about how to submit a PDF form to a server side component:
http://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/form-submit-e-mail-demystified
My big problem with this document it doesn't have an example nor an example showing what is going on in a full HTML page. As I result I have some questions:
Can I see such an example somewhere?
Does the call to the javascript function doc.SubmitForm(urlToMyServerSideComponent) go in a script tag on the HTML page like other javascripts?
Can I execute that submit function from an HTML button or do I need to put a "submit" button on the PDF form?
Do I need Adobe LiveCycle in order to create a PDF form with a "submit" button? Free versions?
Can I send via HTTP POST ?
Do I need Adobe LiveCycle to crate a PDF form with a digital signature?
Is there a document/tutorial that fits where I am starting off from? ( Please no books, I am tyring to show my boss that this is something that can be done, in a reasonable amount of time, not time to get and go through a book ).
Thanks in advance for any tips that get me pointed in the right direction
Steve

To answer some of your specific questions:
2, 3. The submit form button needs to be on the PDF. You can either configure a Submit Form action or use the submitForm JavaScript method.
4, 6: No to both questions. You can create the form in Acrobat. Such forms are knows as Acroforms, as opposed to XFA forms that are created with LiveCycle Designer. Acroforms have wider support.
5: Yes, that's the method that's used when submitting to a web server. You have your choice of formats. The "HTML Form" option causes the form data to be submitted in the same format as an HTML form, so the same type of server-side code can be used to process the data. As Dave's tutorial shows, the server should return an FDF as the response, however, as opposed to HTML content.
It's a mistake to try to embed the PDF in a web page. So much depends on the user's browser, PDF viewer, and how both are configured. PDF forms can be submitted directly from Adobe Reader/Acrobat, so it's not necessary for them to be viewed in a browser. Note that Adobe Reader for iOS/Android don't yet support submitting to a web server (apart from FormsCentral), but that's is supposedly being worked on.
Since you mentioned digital signatures, be aware that for Reader users to be able to sign, the document has to be Reader-enabled, either with Acrobat Pro or LiveCycle Reader Extensions (which is not the same as LiveCycle Designer). Digital signatures in PDF forms are not yet supported on mobile devices. Also, you will want to submit the entire PDF, as opposed to just the form data, when submitting a digitally signed form.

Why won't my form work on my iPad?

I've created a simple form, using Acrobat Pro 9 / LiveCycle Designer on a Windows PC. The form has a few radio buttons, text entry boxes, and a drop-down selection box. It also has place that shows the current date.
The form works fine on the PC. I've emailed it to myself and opened it on my iPad in Adobe Reader, and the form appears, but it's completely static. The date is blank and none of the controls work.
Adobe's description for its Reader iPad app says it works with forms.
Am I doing something wrong, or what's the problem?

Acrobat comes with the tools to create both XFA forms (with LiveCycle Designer) or Acroforms (directly in Acrobat). The choice may not have been clear, but it is there. They are very different technologies, with Acroforms having the most support, but with Adobe software and third-part PDF viewers.
I'm not aware of a simple way to convert from an XFA to an Acroform, though it is a bit easier with static XFAs (as opposed to dynamic).
P does stand for Portable, but that requires that someones builds a PDF viewer for your particular OS. Not every viewer supports every feature that's available with PDF. Mobile viewers in particular impose various limitations, from memory to things like JavaScript. Also, XFAs are really XML wrapped in a PDF wrapper, not really PDF at all.

Code to include a water mark in Live cycle

HI ,
My requirement is to include a water mark on a digital signature. The water marks says "Click Here to Sign". and once the user clicks on the digital signature the water mark should disappear. Can any one help me in writing a code for this.
Thanks,
Bhaskar.

Hi Bhaskar,
Which version of LiveCycle are you using?
Do you want to apply digital signature on XFA form created using LiveCycle Designer or Acroform created using Acrobat?
If you are trying to apply digital signature on XFA based form
You can create a text field with "Click Here to Sign" and overlay digital signature field on it and use Appearance Options of Digital Signature service APIs to set opacity of logo PDF to 100% to hide the text "Click Here to Sign" when user applies the signature
--Santosh
http://about.me/nskumar

Xfdf supporting java library for xfa form provided by Adobe ?

I had been working to find that how we can handle the newer xfdf format and explored many pdf libraries including Apache PDFBox and iTtext.
While exploring I found that the underlying architecture for the pdf itself could be either Xfa (composed in livecyle designer) or Acroform(composed in acrobat tool). The forms available with us are third party provided form and are Xfa forms.
Acroforms are properly supported in all these libraries but I see very less support for Xfa.
Is there any java liberaries provided by Adobe to work with xfdf format in Xfa Forms ?
Thanks
Shah Imran Alam

Thanks , but pls elaborate more on this .
Is it LiveCycle ES3 Server ? If yes which jar do I need for this purpose. Any documentation to go with it ?
Thanks
Shah Imran Alam

Calendar Popup

how can i insert calendar popup to my forms?

There is no built-in date picker for forms created in Acrobat, but there is for XFA forms created in LiveCycle Designer.
There is a date picker component that is designed for acroforms that you can download from: http://www.formrouter.com/tools/

Converting AcroForms javascript to Designer javascript

In Acrobat 6.0, I defined a form's field test script as;
var re = /^[A-Z][a-z]+ [A-Z] [A-Z][a-z]+$/
if (re.test(event.value) == false){
.... to test a field for a user's Firstname, Middle Initial, Lastname.
How do I write the same validation script in Designer 7?

Chris, I made the change but I got several lines of errors.
Here is the code to validate a name field;
var re = /^[A-Z][a-z]+ [A-Z] [A-Z][a-z]+$/
if (re.test(this.rawValue) == false)
xfa.host.messageBox("You did not enter a valid name. You
need to enter First, middle initial, and last name.")
And these are the error messages;
SyntaxError: missing ( before condition
3:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:mouseExit
SyntaxError: missing ( before condition
3:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:mouseExit
SyntaxError: missing ( before condition
3:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:mouseExit
SyntaxError: unterminated string literal
4:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:mouseExit
SyntaxError: unterminated string literal
4:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:exit
SyntaxError: unterminated string literal
4:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:validate
SyntaxError: unterminated string literal
5:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:mouseExit
SyntaxError: unterminated string literal
5:XFA:F[0].P1[0].reqName[0]:validate

Can acroforms be copied into an interactive LC form?

Hi all,
I created a flowed form in LC ES2 for our area that opens new accounts recently and it is also my first exposure to LC so my knowledge base is very limited thus far.
Upper management has decided that instead of simply making the current "forms" (word, excel and some PDF files) interactive PDF's, they want to incorposrate all of the various forms into a single interactive form.
In my mind this is a huge task given that there are over 40 different types of accounts which have anywhere from 10-20 other documents needing completion. I've suggested beginning this task with a top 5 or top 10 most frequently opened account types but even that seems daunting to me.
What I have to work with is LC ES2 and Acrobat Pro X. From what I've experienced what seems to work best is to first create PDF's of the word/excel files using Acrobat, then import into LC if I want to create new interactive forms.
What I tried but have failed to do now is to copy a current PDF (acroform) into a new page/subform into my original flowed form. Ex. I have a generic disclosure document (4 pages) that was a word doc, I created a pdf fom acrobat, then attempted to copy and paste that form into a blank subform I added to the flowed form. I got an error indicating there was not enough space. I was hoping the subform paste would expand to fit whatever I was pasting in but that is not what I'm seeing.
Can this be done? If not, any suggestions on how to accomplish this task?
As a general estimate, I'd say I've been tasked to add nearly 50-75 separate pdf forms to this original then dynamically hide/show/prefill certain pages based on account type selections, etc.
I really hope there is some way to copy/import these rather than have to recreate each from scratch. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

You won't be able to do it and have a proper dynamic form. You would be able to import the pdfs as artwork and lay fields on top but wouldn't have any flow. If you want to just show and hide static pages then importing PDF artwork would probably work ok.
The best procedure I've found is to recreate forms in Designer from scratch if you want a truly dynamic form. Importing from Word creates a big mess, I tried it a couple of times and moved on. Importing from Acrobat can work but again I find recreating from scratch a better way to go.
What I tried but have failed to do now is to copy a current PDF (acroform) into a new page/subform into my original flowed form. Ex. I have a generic disclosure document (4 pages) that was a word doc, I created a pdf fom acrobat, then attempted to copy and paste that form into a blank subform I added to the flowed form. I got an error indicating there was not enough space. I was hoping the subform paste would expand to fit whatever I was pasting in but that is not what I'm seeing.
PDFs either have to be opened by Designer first or placed as background artwork you can't copy and paste them in.
In my mind this is a huge task given that there are over 40 different types of accounts which have anywhere from 10-20 other documents needing completion. I've suggested beginning this task with a top 5 or top 10 most frequently opened account types but even that seems daunting to me.
I think you would go mad trying to get it all working. Forms, when they get quite large, can take a performance hit as well. Much better off grouping by similar function, etc. If you flowcharted the whole thing out you might get it working but it would be an arduous task.
We tried doing a large form that was tying to integrate forms from several government ministries and departments and we got it mostly working but it ended up being very difficult to work on. Also the clients didn't really seem to know what they wanted which didn't help.
We have successfully combined 3 or 4 forms into one and it works well for specific applications. But again, built from scratch.
Other people may have had success with this kind of thing but not us.

Adobe Acrobat 9 and LiveCycle Designer

We have had some outside help creating forms and they have been using LiveCycle Designer and we would like to make some changes however since we only have Acrobat 9 we are not able to open the form to edit fields. When looking at the help menu in Acrobat is stays that You can use LiveCycle designer to edit forms that were created in Acrobat, however Acrobat can not edit forms fields that have been opened and saved in LiveCycle Designer.
With that said, do we have LiveCycle and we just dont know about it? Our outside help seems to think we should have it? does anyone know a work around? Thanks!

You should be able to open the form. As far as edits, you will have to go to the FORMS menu. The TOOLS>Forms is for the AcroForms, not LiveCycle. The FORMS menu is generally your entry to LiveCycle. If you do not have that, it is apparently an issue with Std (I thought they had added Forms to AA9 Std).

Errors on saved form when designed with Acrobat 9 Pro

I have created a file with Acrobat 9 Pro with fields, check boxes, etc.... for customers to fill in, save, and e-mail/print .
I finally managed to get the form to be saved by any Adobe Acrobat Reader 8 (or above). But when they open their saved , filled-in form, the contents have changed! The boxes they have ticked are no longer ticked, but others are instead...

LiveCycle Designer is no longer distributed as part of the Acrobat release. I think it is available as a separate product. At this point, Acrobat provides the AcroForm type tools (kind of hard to get to, just as in some previous versions) and the option for Forms Central. The whole focus has changed. I suspect that others may be in the same situation of trying to get their forms to interact in Acrobat or Forms Central, but at this point I do not think there is any way to back Designer forms into either of the two current formats. Not much help, but a comment in any case.

I have downloaded a trail version of adobe acrobat pro and when I try to use it, it says that it cannot be edited in acrobat, please use adobe livecycle designer to edit this form. I can't work out what I need to do?

I have downloaded a trail version of adobe acrobat pro and when I try to use it, it says that it cannot be edited in acrobat, please use adobe livecycle designer to edit this form. I can't work out what I need to do?

Acrobat XI is not distributed with Designer. Designer is now a separate product. You can create forms in Acrobat as an AcroForm or using Forms Central (an online forms program). You can print the form to a new PDF and then recreate the fields in Acrobat using the recognize form fields. You will likely have to fix the form fields, but that would be the process. Generally, once a form is taken to Designer, you can't bring it back without such steps.
Designer is available with AA8 - AAX, but since is a separate product as I indicated.

Acrobat Pro XI when installed over Acrobat 9 Pro removes LiveCycle Designer.

Acrobat Pro XI when installed over Acrobat 9 Pro removes LiveCycle Designer. Forms Central can't open LiveCycle Designer Forms so what do you do?
I have uninstalled XI and re-installed LiveCycle Designer only. On re-installation, I chose not to uninstall version 9 and to do a customer set up (not installing forms central).
LiveCycle is now working along with Acrobat ProXI

LiveCycle Designer is no longer distributed as part of the Acrobat release. I think it is available as a separate product. At this point, Acrobat provides the AcroForm type tools (kind of hard to get to, just as in some previous versions) and the option for Forms Central. The whole focus has changed. I suspect that others may be in the same situation of trying to get their forms to interact in Acrobat or Forms Central, but at this point I do not think there is any way to back Designer forms into either of the two current formats. Not much help, but a comment in any case.

Cannot fill forms created by LiveCycle Designer

Dear all,
By using Adboe Reader for iPad, I can fill the forms created by Adobe Pro, but cannot view pdf and fill the forms created by LiveCycle Designer. Any idea?
Thanks,
Jackson

Thanks for the reply. Right now I can create froms in Adobe Pro, but I need to create an "image file" which is only avialble in LiveCycle designer. Did the Acroforms you mention supports Image field? I tried to create a form with image fields in LiveCycle Designer, and then save as static form. It will work for PC but doesn't work for iPad.
Thanks

Designer vs AcroForms

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