Ted Padova’s AUC Blog

I’m one of those people who have a hard time living by the rules. I guess that’s why I don’t have a real job. It’s so hard for me to stay within a defined structure and be happy about it. When it comes to each new release of Acrobat, I’m always poking around trying to get the program to do what I want it to do rather than conform to the way Adobe wants me to do it.

Case in point: Again in the newest release of Acrobat, we don’t have a version of Adobe Designer available for the Mac people. So what’s a Mac person to do when it comes time to massage, manipulate, re-design a form that was created in Adobe LiveCycle Designer? Now, Adobe wants us to play by the rules and either wait for Boot Camp to be finalized and buy a new Intel Dual Core machine plus a Windows version of Acrobat or go out and purchase a Windows machine just so we can get into Designer and work on XML forms.

These solutions aren’t going to appeal to all Mac users, so for the people still working on Power PCs and those on Windows who prefer editing forms in Acrobat we need a little workaround to break the rules. Of course breaking the rules typically comes with consequences. The workaround for converting Designer XML forms to Acrobat PDF forms will get you the form fields added in the original Designer form, but translating any scripts and actions will be trashed. You find dynamic attributes of a form created in Designer that is converted to a PDF form lost and the field names will be no less than bizarre. However, for some workflows, converting forms so you can polish and edit the form designs in Acrobat does have its place.

In a pinch, when you need to convert a Designer XML form to an Acrobat PDF form, here’s how to do it:

Adobe Designer 8 supports two different types of forms: Static forms and Dynamic forms. If a form is created as a static form you can easily convert the form in Acrobat 8 to a PDF form.

1. Open the form in Acrobat 8
2. Select Document > Extract Pages. You’ll immediately know if the form is a static form because only static forms give you access to the Extract Pages command. If the form is a dynamic form, the Extract pages command is grayed out.
   

When the form is extracted, the form fields are converted and you gain access to all the editing tools in Acrobat.

Keep a copy of Acrobat 7 on your computer

If you have a dynamic form to convert to a PDF form, you need to use another method. Unfortunately, you can’t use this method in Acrobat 8. You need to keep a copy of Acrobat 7 on your computer if converting dynamic XML forms to PDF forms is something you intend to do frequently.

Fortunately, for the Mac people, you can keep a copy of Acrobat 7 on your computer that can coexist with Acrobat 8. You may find some installation notes suggesting that you remove all earlier versions of Acrobat from your computer and for Windows you do need to do this, but on the Mac, don’t believe it. I have versions 5, 6, 7, 8, Acrobat Standard 7, and Adobe Reader versions 5, 6, 7, and 8 all running on a new MacPro and I haven’t found any problem working with any version on the Mac. After all, we’re breaking the rules again and breaking this rule doesn’t come with consequences.

On Windows, you have a more complex problem. You can set up your computer to run Acrobat 7 but it’s a much more complex task and not as easy as for the Mac people. If you have an older computer lying around, you’re best off keeping Acrobat 7 on a second computer.

To convert a Designer XML form to a PDF form, follow these steps:

1. Open Acrobat 7.
2. Select Create PDF From Web Page.
3. In the Create PDF Web Page dialog box. Click the Browse button and locate your Designer form stored locally on your hard drive.
4. Select the file and click the Create button.
   
5. The form is converted to a PDF form.

Again, none of the JavaScripts or FormCalc scripts are converted and the field names will have obscure long field names. But all the fields are accessible and the form is editable in Acrobat 7 or 8.

Why can’t I use Create PDF Form Web Page in Acrobat 8?

Acrobat 8 now converts Web page links to PDFs as file attachments. When you select Create PDF From Web Page and select a PDF document, a blank page is created and the PDF you attempt to convert using the Create PDF From Web Page command adds the PDF document as a file attachment. Hence, you need to use Acrobat 7 so the PDF is converted and opens up in the Document pane.

ted

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 11:16 am and is filed under Forms Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.