How can we do it?

Question

Good morning,
In my company, we're working in an application which have as requirement use a pdf as form.In other words, a pdf that user may edit.
The user will be able to download the form from the web , and fill it disconnected.
The problem we have is for the drop-down lists.
One of the list, have about 10.000 items, so we'll do a previous selection of the data.
Each selection will give, different data.
After this selection, the items will be reduced to a maximum of 50.
I think it's possible to do it. Isn't it?
How can we do it? With an Xml maybe?
Do you have an example?
The problem we have is that we have to put the way the programmer will do this in the technical design.
May someone help us?
Thanks a lot in advance
Joaquim

Answer 1

In order to load data into a PDF form, whether it's from an XML data file or from a data base, you'll need to create a data connection. You can do this by using the Data View palette.
If you have a schema which describes an XML data file, you can create a data connection to this schema and then establish bindings to/from nodes in the schema to/from objects on the form so that when data matching the schema is loaded into the form, the correct values are loaded into the fields the schema nodes are bound to. In the same way, when the form data is saved (exported via email, for example), it's exported as an XML data file which has a structure matching the schema to which fields are bound. By the way, if you don't have a schema but have a sample XML data file, you can create a data connection using that file and Designer will infer a schema from it.
If your data is coming from a data base, you'll first need to create an ODBC connection to this data base and then create a data connection, in Designer, to a table in that data base via the ODBC connection you created.
Once you have a data connection, many interesting things are possible. For instance, if you're running Designer 7.1, there's a new feature called "Dynamic Properties". This will let you specify from which nodes a list should automatically be populated using its items. This feature isn't activated by default so you'll have to go to the "Tools | Options" menu, Data Binding tab and check the
Show Dynamic Properties box. After that, you'll get a green clickable control (named "List Items") on the drop down list's Field tab in the Object palette with which you can use to specify which nodes in the data connection the list will be populated.
Let me know if you have any more questions.
Stefan
Adobe Systems