Re-sort in PDF form

Hi experts,
I'm using transaction SFP to develop PDF forms.
Is it possible to re-sort an internal table in a PDF form.
Thanks,
Anja

More details. Are you asking to change the form fields or the underlying content. If the underlying content you should go back to the original files. If the changes don't affect the placement of the form fields, you can replace the pages in the old pdf file with the new and the form fields will remain.

Similar Messages

Questions about using a PDF form online

I have a client who wants to create an online version of a PDF form that they are currently using. I am currently trying to explain to them that this would be best done as an HTML web form, but I may not win this argument. I have only used PDFs for printed forms (either hand-written or using form fields) so I am not familiar with any problems that converting the form for use online would entail.
When the 'Submit' button is pressed on the form, is there a way to redirect to another web page after the data is submitted? (i.e. does the PDF have access to it's outer 'environment'?)
Are there any security issues submitting data using the PDF form as opposed to using a standard web form? (There may be sensitive data being submitted)
I'm not sure how they plan to handle the data that is submitted, but there are several options in the submitForm parameters - I am assuming that using the HTML option would submit the data in the same format as a web form would. Am I correct here?
Can the PDF be prevented from being downloaded or printed? This form should only be used to submit data to their server, not as a printed form.
Are there any other 'gotchas' that I need to look out for? Does anyone have a recommendation for a site which contains any tutorials or guidelines for using PDF forms online?

Thanks for the information.
Yes, I agree that there is less reason for it to be a PDF form (Actually, no real reason other than the original form already exists in PDF), but I am unfortunately in the position that my input in this project is not necessarily being considered (my company is following direct -and inconsistent- directions from the client, and I have no contact with the client to ask questions about what their actual needs are). I have been told to give the client the 'Tomato' that they are asking for, even though they are describing an 'Apple'.
The reason this form is not meant to be printed is that we have replaced the 'Signature' fields from the original form with checkboxes that the user must check to confirm they have 'signed' the document. If they are to print/fax/whatever the document, they should use the original form, not this one. And I am still trying to explain to them that this would be better served with an HTML web form, but I fear I am losing that battle.
I have brought up the fact that it is not 100% guaranteed that Acrobat will be available in the browser, although I can only guess that it is less than likely that anyone will not have some sort of PDF viewer available to their browser.
I will also mention that issues may arise if the file is not submitted from within the browser.

Filling PDF forms with in-house software - pdf no longer works in Reader

I have created a PDF form in Acrobat 8.1.0 Pro and enabled the "Filling of form fields" feature.
1)
I can open this form in Adobe Reader, fill fields, save, load / repeat process as many times as I want with no problems.
What we would like to be able to do is "pre-fill" some of the form fields using an in-house application with some data and save. At a later time, users would need to add additional information.
If I open one of these pre-filled forms with Adobe Reader, it immediately gives an error message and closes the file:
"This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and these rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document."
Other programs such as "Foxit" and "AmiUni PDFSuite" don't seem to care that the file was pre-filled.
Is this because Adobe Reader actually checks some sort of CRC or signature which was created at the time the initial PDF form was created by Adobe Pro - and if the signature is no longer valid Adobe Reader won't go any further?
2)
What would be the options to get around this problem? Is there a way to accomplish this with Adobe Pro? We need to be able to pre-fill some fields in the form from our application, then have the user complete filling the form manually.
Thanks!

Enabling usage rights in reader grants specific rights for a given document - form fill in, saving, signing, etc. Reader checks if something else has been done to the document beyond the scope of the rights granted and apparently the program you are using to add the form data is triggering this test for some reason. There is a digital signature which isused to check this, plus an analysis of what has changed in incremental save sections.
What you are trying to do should work in principal. If the developer of the application is available, have them look at what else is being changed besides the addition of form data. They should be able to fix the problem.
If the pre-fill data is the same for each user, you can definitely run the pre-fill and then enable usage in reader.

Extend SAP R/3 4.x with Interactive PDF Forms

Hi there,
In this blog of Matthias Zeller <a href="http:///people/matthias.zeller2/blog/2004/06/22/the-hidden-secret-of-adobe-reader hidden secret of Adobe Reader</a> there is the following paragraph:
<i>While mySAP ERP 2004 provides many business scenarios using Interactive Forms out-of-the-box, a lot of customers have asked me how they can use the new Interactive Forms with existing R/3 applications. Therefore, I would like to encourage you to vote for my SAP TechEd presentation proposal ("Extend your SAP R/3 4.x applications with interactive PDF forms"). I plan to discuss how you can connect your existing SAP R/3 applications with SAP Web AS 6.40 to enable interactive form workflows.</i>
Can somebody tell me if this presentation is somewhere on SDN? Or can somebody tell me where i can find more information about this subject?
Thx in advance.
Regards Maarten.

Hi Maarten,
Here's a brief run-down on how you could make use of SAP/Adobe Interactive Forms and Workflow:
1) Remember that a form is really just a UI for collecting data. A PDF form can be used to collect data online (connected to your SAP system) or offline, e.g. you could send it as a mail attachment, fill it in, and email it to a central point for uploading into the system.
2) The main requirements for using SAP Interactive Forms are:
a) A NW04 (6.40) or NW04s (7.00) WebAs (Java Stack) to run Adobe Document Services. This is the critical component that assigns ReaderRights to the document, e.g. so that the user can change the data and save it on the document. You could run a WebAs like this alongside your R/3 4.7 - e.g. if you have an XI system or Enterprise Portal you could use that system to run Adobe Document Services. Every form you create must be generated via the Adobe Document Services to get the Reader Rights. Note: Get a NW04s environment if you can - as this release has usefuul new features such as loading attachments to the PDF, using digital signatures, etc.
b) A WebDynpro application to generate the Adobe form via Adobe Document Services, and to execute the Adobe Form when using online mode, and to upload offline forms. Tutorials on how to do this are available in SDN - have a look at the Adobe section within WebDynpro. Note: From ECC 5.0 there are some standard WebDynpros apps provided, but in R/3 4.7 you will need to write your own.
c) There's also a licensing requirement for any production custom forms (SAP provided forms and cosmetic changes to those forms are free) so make sure you get your SAP account manager involved to help sort out how your intended usage will fit in with your current license agreement and any discounts that may apply.
3) To use the "form" with workflow has some additional requirements:
a) You need to store the data entered via the form somewhere that is accessible by Workflow. The easiest approach here is to use the standard form handling technique Internet Service Requests. Transaction QISRSCENARIO will let you define all of the form fields, give you BADIs for doing validation, raising workflow events, etc. Also from ECC 5.0 onwards using Adobe forms as the form entry is a standard option for this technique, so this will help reduce the upgrade impact when you eventually do upgrade.
b) Assuming you use ISRs, have your WebDynpro App call the function module ISR_PROCESS_EVENT to pass the data to R/3 and do the validation checks.
c) Assuming you use ISRs, you use the BOR object for notification such as BUS2078, as your main object for the workflow. The form data is attached to the notification and can be retrieved using function module ISR_SPECIAL_DATA_GET.
d) If you want to call your WebDynpro App from SBWP (I take you don't have Enterprise Portal?) then use transaction WF_EXTSRV to define the web service to call your WebDynpro app and generate a workflow task for it. Also you must configure transaction WF_HANDCUST to enable R/3 to handle web services. Note: If you do have the Enterprise Portal, you can use transaction SWFVISU instead.
I'd strongly recommend you read the ISR cookbook at http://service.sap.com/isr as well. ISRs aren't the only way to use Adobe forms with R/3 but they are extremely handy if you want to use your Adobe form with Workflow.
As for Lotus Notes, you can use your WebDynpro app to generate and send/receive a form to/from an email address. You can also put a hyperlink in your workflow task to call your WebDynpro app and use RSWUWFML2 (swap to Enhanced Notifications when you upgrade) to send out a mail with the hyperlink attached as per usual.
You'll also find some useful threads on Adobe forms and Workflow in the SDN BPM Forum. So if you have workflow specific questions try raising them in the BPM forum.
Enjoy!
Regards,
Jocelyn

PDF Forms Comparison

Dear LiveCycle Users,
I desperatly need your help on that one... We are using PDF Forms (created using Adobe LiveCycle), these forms are injected with XML Date using LiveCycle servers.
We need to compare to these forms between each other, but the built-in compare tool in Acrobat X does not seem to handle PDF forms comparison.
Do you know how we could proceed to compare the data entered in these forms ?
We even tried using some software to do a Diff comparison on the XML data, but the problem with this scenario is that we cannot find a way to highlight the changes in the PDF form, once reinjected with the XML data (no way to control the formating from the data itsel for all fields e.g. using HTML code...)
Thanks for your help...
Thibault

If it is differences in the data then you will have to use an external tool to do the comparison of the data files. You coudl put some sort of marker in the data node then have code in the form that woudl look in the field for that marker and if present change the background color to indicate that something has changed.
Are you concerned about someone changing the form after it was rendered before the user sees it? Can you elaborate on your use case a bit - specifically what scenario are you trying to guard against?
Paul

Submitting a PDF form --- save and send completed PDF document?

A small government site has a number of 'submittable' PDF
form documents
that they'd like me to include on the website. I am not very
familiar
with PDF forms in this way, and hope someone here can help
sort out a
few things...
Can a PDF form be submitted so that
a) the completed PDF doc is saved on the server (and renamed)
b) a printable , completed PDF (looks just like the one they
filled out,
with all their values saved in the input boxes) is emailed to
specific
address
c) the raw user data is saved to database (maybe a list of
fields in one
column of a db table, and a matching list of values in
another? this
would just be for backup in case the completed PDF did not
save
correctly to the server, or for later reference)
We've looked at the standard Acrobat 'submit via email' and
that won't
cut it... that method appears to simply trigger a 'mailto'
popup, with
the pdf as an attachment. Our system needs to be automated
via CFmail.
None of these would handle any 'sensitive' information, the
main
concern, from their part, is people being able to submit the
form and
have both the city office and the recipient get a copy that
prints just
as if they had hit 'print' when filling out the actual PDF.
Is all of this possible ??
if so... any tips appreciated!
Michael Evangelista, Evangelista Design
Web : www.mredesign.com Blog : www.miuaiga.com
Developer Newsgroups: news://forums.mredesign.com

nobody?
seems i can do some of this with 'cfpdfform'... looking into
it but also
seeking live examples/experience.
Michael Evangelista, Evangelista Design
Web : www.mredesign.com Blog : www.miuaiga.com
Developer Newsgroups: news://forums.mredesign.com

Can the responses submitted from a pdf form be viewable in a table format in SharePoint?

I created a pdf form with Acrobat X. My plan it to upload the form to SharePoint and allow users to use this form to submit "help desk" type issues. However, I have a virtual team that need to view the responses in a table format so they can filter and sort the growing list of responses. Acrobat seems to only allow me to save the "response" file on my own desktop, not SharePoint. Is there a way for the responses to be stored and viewed in a SharePoint workspace so that members of the virtual team can view and sort the users' responses in a table format?

Yeah that's the best bet, though if you don't want to make a bunch of fields, you can also just save it with the Typewriter tool enabled in Acrobat (Tools > Typewriter > Enable Typewriter Tool in Adobe Reader). Then, the person viewing it will get a little typewriter tool that they can use. I think they have to have version 9 of Adobe Reader.
But it looks the best to add in all the fields individually.
Hope that helps,
Phyllis

InDesign equivalent of LiveCycle's "Image Field" in PDF form creation?

LiveCycle has a PDF form field called "Image Field". We add this field to the PDF files we create so that our end users can select and import a JPEG image into their PDF document using Adobe Reader.
Now we would like to use InDesign to produce the same PDF form files as an alternative to using LiveCycle. Does InDesign have a PDF form field like LiveCycle's "Image Field"? We haven't found it yet.
In other words, does someone know in InDesign how to create a field in PDF forms which has the same functionality as LiveCycle's "Image Field"? LiveCycle's field works in enabled Adobe Reader files, and permits JPEG format, among others.
Thank you,
Kevin
P.S. We discovered a way to create PDF forms in Adobe Acrobat Pro XI with similar functionality by using JavaScript, but the Acrobat Pro created documents only permit Adobe Reader to import PDF files, not JPEG or other image formats. So Adobe Acrobat Pro XI was not a viable alternative to LiveCycle for creating our PDF files. We'd like to know if we need to rule out InDesign, too.

It's worth separating out the different responsibilities and products.
Whether a functionality exists in Reader depends on the Acrobat team. Reader, being free, is limited by design, the aim of the design being to sell copies of Acrobat. Obviously, Reader can't make PDFs or do preflighting. Less obviously, there are a bunch of JavaScript functions that don't work. Sometimes, with Reader enabling, more functions become available. (There are different kinds of Reader enabling, some of which need very expensive extra products).
Whether a form capability exists at all is largely down to the PDF specification (now an ISO standard) or the XFA specification. Adobe can choose to go beyond the specification but largely choose not to.
So, the InDesign team can make form fields, not because the Acrobat team approves, but because the way this is done is written down in the PDF Specification. InDesign _could_ choose to make XFA forms, but thank goodness that will never happen.
So, if you want InDesign forms to do something you first have to ask: can Acrobat forms to this. NOT XFA (LIveCycle forms) which are done by a different team to different rules. So far as I know Acrobat forms cannot do the sort of thing you want; that is, placing arbitrary graphics, but in certain circumstances they can place PDF files.
Why make the distinction?
- If Acrobat can make forms that do this, then so can InDesign: it's worth asking the InDesign people to do it.
- If Adobe limit Adobe Reader, there is no use asking the InDesign team to solve this.
- If Acrobat can't make forms that do this, then nor can InDesign.

Problem submitting PDF form in WorkSpace

Hi, my server is ES2.5 Turnkey install (Express mode) on Windows.
Client is IE-8 with latest Reader.
My form is a PDF form created in the WorkBench,
it has 2 pages, with some Digital Signature fields,
I have also added the "Process Fields" group onto page 2 of the form.
The form is to be routed in the standard WorkSpace.
At the Initiator step (Start Point), I use the Action Profile to do the Pre-fill of the form.
I have checked the Reader Extended box.
I use a Document variable as the Output from the StartPoint, the doc variable references my .PDF form template.
Everything works fine at the Initiator step, the form fields are all properly Pre-filled.
The problem is:
after I click the Complete button, it goes to the next participant of the workflow process,
when that person opens up the form in the WorkSpace, it's all blank, none of the data at the Initiator step show up.
This User task uses the same Document variable as the Input (specified at the Presentation & Data tab).
What do I need to do to pass the form data along with the form to the next person in the Process?
What have I done wrong? what should I check?
thanks.

I sort of narrowed down the problem a little bit.
I created a smaller PDF form, it has Digital Signature field as well as the Process Fields group, plus some Text fields. When I used it in the SAME process (changed the Document variable to point to this new small form of course) everything worked! No data loss. Everything on the form including the Signature got passed to the next person in the workflow just fine.
So I think my Process design is fine, the problem appears to be in the original 2-page PDF form.
But I can't figure out what thing on the form could have caused the data loss!
There's no error message anywhere, nothing in the JBoss server log either.
Has anybody seen similar problem like this?
thanks.

Is there a way to sort a PDF file with multiple pages by a specific field within the PDF? All pages have the same invoice format and i would like to sort by a field within and then print the documents. (Vendor, PO

Is there a way to sort a PDF file with multiple pages by a specific field within the PDF? All pages have the same invoice format and i would like to sort by a field within and then print the documents. (Vendor, PO#, Date, ect.)

When you say field, do you mean specifically a form field, such as a text field? Or is the information regular text on the page?

CS3 Lifecycle PDF form issues opening and blank pages

I downloaded a PDF form and added text fields, numeric and calculated fields (FormCalc) using Lifecylce in CS3. I now have CS5 and Lifecycle ES When I use the original form and input data it calculates and looks fine. I can open it no issues. I email it to my clients, some say the fields are blank, some say they get an error opening it, others have no issues. Do I need to make some sort of changes to the PDF file, or maybe the ones that can't open or see blank don't have the correct version of Reader?
I can provide the file if necessary

Everything seems to be in order .....can you send the problem PDF to [email protected] and I will try to reproduce the issue. Please include a description of the issue in the email as there is no corelation between the email and this forum.
Thanks
Paul

PDF form response display

I'm pretty new to all of this, but here is what I'm trying to do:
I work at a research facility, and we are wanting to be able to send PDF surveys and forms to people, and then let them click on an http submit button that will send the data to a JEE5 servlet that will persist the data into our database, so we can reduce manual entry.
We made a simple PDF form in LiveCycle Designer 8, and I have the servlet working fine, in that it takes all of the information and and persists it to the database. the only thing left is we want to give the user some sort of results to let them know that the data was entered, and if possible show them some generated content, such as a score or results or something. The "preview pdf" window in the LiveCycle Designer can read html fine, so it shows everything as we want. However, plain adobe reader cant, it pops up an error saying "Cannot handle content type: text/html". Now the data is entered into the database fine, but the user thinks there was an error.
I found an opensource java api (iText) that can generate pdfs and send them out in the response stream. Normal browsers recognize it fine, saving a pdf that can then be opened in adobe reader, but adobe reader still thinks its a text/html stream, and the LiveCycle Designer thinks the new pdf has not pages.
if I could get the reader to display some sort of results page, that would be great, but really I would be satisfied with as little as the pop up window saying "Data submitted successfully".

Derrick,
I don't think this is quite the right LiveCycle forum. This is for the Data
Services part of LC, formerly known as the Flex Data Services. This is the
back-end server that works with Flex client applications.
I would try the Forms forums.
Tom

PDF Form - remove buttons?

I am working on a small government site that will contain a
number of
PDF forms which can be completed online and submitted via
'cfpdfform'.
So far i have the submission working great, saving a copy of
the actual
completed pdf on the server and stripping out all of the
submitted data
, which is saved in a database with a datestamp and other
important info.
These forms are being created in LiveCycle by staff members,
with
specific formatting and details determined by them.
Fortunately CF makes
it super easy to 'talk' to these forms.
The only issue I cannot sort out at this stage - each form
has a
"submit" button, which passes the data and the PDF itself to
a receiving
coldfusion page. When viewing the stored copy of the PDF
after
submission, along with all the user's info filled in, the
'submit'
button is still there. This means the user can submit a form,
click a
link to view/print his completed copy, and then easily click
the
'submit' button again, going round and round.
*Q*
Is it possible to remove or disable specific PDF Form buttons
with
coldfusion?
I looked at the 'flatten' option, but that appears not to
work with
LiveCycle created forms.
Michael Evangelista, Evangelista Design
Web : www.mredesign.com Blog : www.miuaiga.com
Developer Newsgroups: news://forums.mredesign.com

What I've done is:
Put a hidden field in the PDF form called processed.
Set it's value to 0
Make sure it is not included in the signature controlled list if you use a signature.
Have the submit button check the value of the processed field and if it is 0 submit the form.
When the form arrives on the server pull the form field values into an XML document
Update the processed field with a value of 1.Write the PDF to the file repository with the XML document and overwritedata set to "yes"
This will allow the user to click on the Submit button all they want but because you've changed the value of processed to 1 it won't submit again.
Kevin

Pdf form field data disappearing?

I am a designer creating fillable field form pdfs (service agreements, questionnaires) for a client (event services management) to send to their customers to fill out, in some cases sign digitally, and email back. In most cases, the fields the customers typed information in is blank in the returned form pdf.
Customers have been using Adobe Acrobat, Apple Preview, and presumably other pdf software. We have started to insist they only use Acrobat, but even in those cases the data fields are coming back blank.
I have read of instances where formatting fields within the form for font and font size can cause problems. Is that really the case?
I do optimize the pdfs when saving to be compatible as far back as Acrobat 4.
Any assistance is greatly appreciated!!!

This was the original file from my computer which hasn't been opened in Preview at any point. Dropbox uses some sort of PDF reader to view PDFs. I had to open up the PDF before I could share it to my Adobe Reader app.
So, now I've worked out how to transfer the original, uncorrupted, PDF file to Adobe Reader on my iPhone by connecting my phone to iTunes on my computer. And the ultimate proof is that the problem still occurs and therefore I believe this is a glitch with the Adobe Reader app specifically (it doesn't happen with my desktop Adobe Reader) which means form boxes with strokes applied don't always work.
You're welcome to try this for yourself - here's the original uncorrupted file. Although I've saved this one into Dropbox so that I can share, I haven't opened it in Dropbox:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/kutwzrrlfo4dpyg/Example%20page.pdf.zip
I've just removed the stroke and it works fine, even after opening in Preview first. This doesn't matter because the Adobe Reader app highlights all the fields by default anyway, so the stroke isn't needed in this case.
Thanks

Multiple Column text field in Static PDF form

Okay, I'm pulling my hair out here. I am filling a .pdf form with itextsharp using powershell scripts. All this part of the issue is working fine.
My problem is that I have the following data:
A3015400R-2,A3015318R-1,A3015318R-2,A3015336R-1,A3015423R-1,A3015423R-2,A3015486R-1,A30153 06R-1,A3015240R-1,A3015102R-1,A3015333R-1,A3015120R-1,A3015158R-1,A3015333R-1,A3015400R-3, A3015400R-6,A3015400R-7,A3015234R-1,A3015234R-2,A3015400R-9,A3015306R-5,A3015311R-1,A30154 00R-2,A3015318R-1,A3015318R-2,A3015336R-1,A3015423R-1,A3015423R-2,A3015486R-1,A3015306R-1, A3015240R-1,A3015102R-1,A3015333R-1,A3015120R-1,A3015158R-1,A3015333R-1,A3015400R-3,A30154 00R-6,A3015400R-7,A3015234R-1,A3015234R-2,A3015400R-9,A3015306R-5,A3015311R-1
That I would like to be displayed in columns across the page within one text field. So that the text field would look like this (approximately):
A3015400R-2
A3015318R-1
A3015318R-2
A3015336R-1
A3015423R-1
A3015423R-2
A3015486R-1
A3015306R-1
A3015240R-1
A3015102R-1
A3015333R-1
A3015120R-1
I have the data sorted before I populate, so they go in numerical order, and i would like the be able to read them from top to bottom, left to right.
I just can't figure out how to either:
a) add multiple columns like I add multiple lines inside a text field
or
b) have multiple text fields linked together to thread the text input from fieldA to fieldB
Any help would be much appreciated.
edit: The data is actually in this format:
A3015400R-2
A3015318R-1
A3015318R-2
A3015336R-1
A3015423R-1
A3015423R-2
A3015486R-1
A3015306R-1
A3015240R-1
A3015102R-1
A3015333R-1
A3015120R-1
A3015158R-1
A3015333R-1
A3015400R-3
A3015400R-6
A3015400R-7
A3015234R-1
A3015234R-2
A3015400R-9
A3015306R-5
A3015311R-1
A3015400R-2
A3015318R-1
A3015318R-2
A3015336R-1
A3015423R-1
A3015423R-2
A3015486R-1
A3015306R-1
A3015240R-1
A3015102R-1
A3015333R-1
A3015120R-1
A3015158R-1
A3015333R-1
A3015400R-3
A3015400R-6
A3015400R-7
A3015234R-1
A3015234R-2
A3015400R-9
A3015306R-5
A3015311R-1
Message was edited by: zombiejellyfish81

Did you ever find any solutions to this problem?

Re-sort in PDF form

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