LiveCycle Designer 8/ Acrobat Pro 8-form data

Question

Not skilled in using the LiveCycle Designer included in Acrobat Pro 8, I have been struggling for a couple of weeks, trying to format a sample form and export data to a .csv file to read in Excel or notepad, once saved in .pdf and completed. I have the basics, but can't accomplish the more advanced. So far, I have used LiveCycle Deisgner to create a one page table form, with a header, 20 columns and 16 rows. The header cells are all text boxes labeling the columns below them. The rows have mostly text input cells/boxes, a few drop- down list boxes.
I can complete, in .pdf, a couple of sample lines with made-up names, other data as a test. It will save, the using manage form data>merge data files into a spreadsheet, I can create a .csv and view it in Excel.
Here's where the difficulty begins. I need the .csv to display every cell/box, even if blank, and in the correct row. The form data will be used by a genetics program's import module to import data and needs to be either a .txt or .csv tab, comma or other symbol (for example, @) delimited file, where blanks are represented by one extra delimiter (as a spacer) for each blank. The .csv data display is anything but that. The header runs across the first .csv row with names like :"form1[0].ID1[0]" while the only other row showing is all of the sample data from the .pdf's 2 completed sample data lines, all in one row, with some blank cells/boxes shown, and some not shown.
Since eventually, once the form is "up and running," it can collect 50+ rows, I was hoping not to have to manually edit the .csv to get it into the acceptable format for the other program's import module.
I am at a loss about how to set up the form in LiveCycle Designer so that the header row doesn't export to the .csv (I am unable to find the data binding controls for these text/header boxes to set them to "none."), the blank cells/boxes all register, rather than only some, and the row 1 data goes on the .csv's row 1 and the row 2 data to the .csv's row 2, etc., rather than an endlessly long single row.
I've already searched forum's, plus the help files for LiveCycle Designer and Acrobat, with no success.
Any ideas, solutions or places where I can check further would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Stephen
[email protected]

Answer 1

Hi,
With LC Designer you can develop a form which has data connections to databases and/or web services.
The issues to consider are: what version of Acrobat will the user have; and if the user only has the Reader then how are you Reader Extending the form.
User has the fulll version of Acrobat:
user can open form;
fill it in;
print it;
data connections to databases and web services will work;
user can save the form.
User has the Reader (form not Reader Enabled)
user can open form;
fill it in;
print it;
data connections to databases and web services will NOT work;
user CANNOT save the form.
User has the Reader (form Reader Enabled using the full version of Acrobat before deployment. See licence restrictions)
user can open form;
fill it in;
print it;
data connections to databases and web services will NOT work;
user can save the form.
User has the Reader (form Reader Enabled using the full LC Enterprise Suite)
user can open form;
fill it in;
print it;
data connections to databases and web services will work;
user can save the form.
Hope that helps,
Niall