Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic solution. What you describe is strange behaviour. Perhaps it just needed to be re-installed?

Yes, you can add hardware- and software-rendered barcodes to forms using the Object Palette’s Barcode panel. Designer supports a multitude of barcodes, both 1-D and 2-D.

PS – Adobe support was useless, suggested I try private forums. They don’t appear to want to admit issues/problems nor correct them.

I am wanting to create a PDF form that a user can key information and the form will generate a 2d barcode when printed out. My user will be faxing these forms to a fax server and I will be scanning the forms to read the 2d barcode.

Can I do this with Ddesigner?

Thanks.
Calvin

Unfortunately, I don’t have any direct advice on this however my colleague John Brinkman has some articles on attachments that might help:

Base64-encode a PDF Attachment
New util.readFileIntoStream() API in Acrobat/Reader 9.2

I believe the first article shows how to load an attachment as base64-encoded text into an XFA form field, at which point you could essentially achieve what you’re wanting to do if the field was in the Form Object Collection…

I’m hoping you can help me?

I’m wondering if there is a way to programmatically associate an attachment to a Form Object Collection so that when that section of the form is digitally signed it locks the associated attachment (subsequently allowing additional attachments to be added to other Form Object Collections on the same form that have not been digitally signed and locked yet)?

This is a Form requirement I’ve been struggling with and have been unable to come up with a solution.

I know that Designer 8.2 itself is limited and does not allow this but can you suggest an alternative (maybe FLEX) that would allow me to accomplish this?

I’m contracting remotely for a client in Southern California but I’m physically located in Colorado.

Thanks very much.
Kim Miller
{scof: phone number removed}

I shall return at a later date, but for now, my head is clearer than when we began this thread a month ago. I am much, much clearer about how to proceed.

All the above questions were clouding my mind big time, and so thanks a lot for your full responses. I’m very grateful.

————-

Hello, World,

Here I come!

I understand about the costs. Note that if you do not involve LiveCycle server products, you will not be able to import/export data using data connections. If you need this capability, you will have to rely on JavaScript to code the import into your form in an unsecure fashion via the URL Request. When exporting data, you will have to either submit it in XML via email and reconstitute the form on your end using Acrobat Pro or you will have to code a PHP/ASP/JSP/etc. server page to which the form can submit its data. You would submit via HTTP and write your own code to take that data and insert it into whatever back-end system your clients have.

As for barcodes, Designer ships with many barcodes which you can use as long as you have the proper scanner. The real value, however, is in the 2D barcodes which you use in concert with LiveCycle Barcoded Forms ES. If you use the 2D barcodes, data will be encrypted and you’ll need Barcoded Forms to decode it on the server. That’s not to say you couldn’t implement your own system using script and various “free” barcodes but it may be a lot of work and will likely not be as robust.

Subform-related posts:
http://forms.stefcameron.com/category/instance-manager/
http://forms.stefcameron.com/category/data-binding/
http://forms.stefcameron.com/category/data-nominated-subforms/
http://forms.stefcameron.com/category/tables/

Enjoy!

PS: I found a great online JavaScript reference at W3School. It covers the basics of JavaScript.

Aha! Aha!
Lightbulb switched on in my head.
Aha!
This really untangles the mess in my head about the different JavaScripts.

Aha!

——————

> but there are advantages like being able to write for different APIs in the same code and using IF statements …

Hmm. Very interesting. I am going to stay with the Designer API for now and learn the Acrobat API along the way.

——————

Schema – we meet again. I am familiar with this noun from other data structures like the directory services for Mac and Windows.

My clients are small businesses that cannot afford server solutions like your LiveCycle products and so I am solely concerned about client-side everything. It looks like I may be able to accomplish quite a bit on the desktop by getting a good handle on Designer’s schema. I could tie PDF forms to my clients’ spreadsheets, and perhaps other desktop applications data. (I hear XML ringing in my head as I type this.)

——————

Very educational response above. Very enlightening, indeed. Thank you very much.

BUT yet another question BARCODES.

Is there a desktop-only way to incorporate these into Acrobat or Designer forms, or is your LiveCycle Barcode server product required for all deployments of barcode PDF forms?

If you know of any links to good posts about subforms, please let me know. My search for ‘subforms’ on Adobe forums returned little of value. There again, I’ve read (and experienced) that the search feature of Adobe’s forums is not the best. Haha.

(To any beginner who may be reading this thread) I highly recommend the book PDF Forms by Angie Okamoto and Ted Padova. Excellent, excellent book. That + the built-in Help manual of Designer will get you started in a methodical fashion instead of the random topics on forums and blogs.

You’re welcome. I’m glad to help-out.

With respect to JavaScript, there’s “basic” JavaScript which is the language itself. That is, for the most part, common on anything that uses JavaScript as the scripting language (e.g. the fact that you concatenate strings using the “+” operator, you end commands with a semi-colon “;”, you access object properties with the dot “.” operator, you access array elements with the “[]” brackets, etc.). Where things differ is with the various APIs (Application Programming Interface) that are implemented to work with JavaScript. Now you have many flavours, like the JavaScript for Acrobat API, the JavaScript for XFA API, etc. On windows, you can write scripts using “JScript” which is Microsoft’s version of JavaScript extended with its own OS-related APIs. The important thing to remember is that these APIs simply make new objects and functions, specific to some functionality, available to you when you write JavaScript code and when that code is executed.

JavaScript is interpreted at runtime so it’s very difficult to tell, at design time, if you’re not using an API call correctly but there are advantages like being able to write for different APIs in the same code and using IF statements to choose which code to execute so that the code pertaining to the current context (and APIs) is executed at the right time.

As for your question about populating Form B with Form A’s data, that’s definitely a challenge and there are many ways of doing it. What you have to remember is that data is what drives a form. The form’s purpose is to show and/or collect data. What shape/form this data has may depend on a schema and you typically have one schema per form. (An XML Schema describes the structure of the data.) If Form A’s schema is different from Form B’s schema, then you have to figure-out a way to translate data from Form A’s format into a format that Form B can read. Even if you were using a database to get and set data, Form A may still have a different structure than Form B (different field names, different nesting of objects, etc.) so, at the very least, you would need script to get data submitted into the database by Form A and push it into the right fields in Form B (and that script is the translation of the data from Form A’s structure into Form B’s structure).