Adobe Reader Submit
Tuesday, August 1st, 2006A while back I was participating in a forum discussion on Reader submit. The original question was “Can Reader e-mail a form?”
There were a flood of responses, all along the lines of “No,” and “only with Adobe Reader Extensions Server.” (For more on ARES, see Duff Johnson’s Reader Extensions Manifesto.)
When I took a contrary view, I was shouted down, again with a chorus of “No,” and “only with Adobe Reader Extensions Server.”
I was puzzled. What is going on with these usually reasoned, generally well informed Acrobat users?
Now for some background. First, it is true that Reader cannot submit a complete PDF form via e-mail. However, Adobe Reader 7 (and earlier versions) can submit the data from a form via e-mail. Since one of the big benefits of PDF forms is the capability to separate the form from the data, transmitting the data instead of the form should work just fine, if this kind of small-scale workflow design works for your organization.
So why were so many generally well informed users saying this couldn’t be done? I think I have come up with an answer.
If you strictly use the Acrobat Pro GUI, Reader can e-mail the data. If you use simple JavaScript, it won’t work.
To see what I mean, open this file in Reader.
The button on the left was programmed entirely in the GUI by using the Button Properties | Actions | Submit a Form technique. The button on the right is set up to do the same thing, except that it uses a simple JavaScript. (Button Properties | Actions | Run a JavaScript)
Both work in Acrobat 7.07. Only the button on the left works in Reader 7.07. In other words, there is some limitation in Reader that prevents it from sending form data via e-mail with a JavaScript action.
I believe this is a source of confusion among even sophisticated users. I certainly wasn’t clear on this until I created the test file.
What do you think? Should Adobe give equal treatment to both kinds of submit buttons?
