Stefan Cameron on Forms
Building intelligent forms using Adobe LiveCycle Designer

Back from Vacation

Hello everyone!

I’m back from my month-long vacation and will be attempting to catch-up on your comments over the next couple of weeks.

I had a great time staying local, doing lots of (bicycle) riding (about 180km/week) and running (1 short run plus 1 long run, averaging 24km, per week), walking, soaking-in the sunshine and watching some movies.

I also had time to hone my volunteer web design/development skills while enhancing the Capital BrassWorks* website and my InDesign/Photoshop/Illustrator skills while helping my wife, Rebecca Lewis*, with some ad designs for her new real estate business in Ottawa.

* Note that Adobe Systems Inc. is not in any way affiliated with these organizations/companies.

Posted by Stefan Cameron on July 6th, 2009
Filed under General
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Back from Vacation”

  1. Jason Hillman on July 29th, 2009

    Stefan,

    First of all, thank you for your commitment to Acrobat and Designer users. With your help I am slowly arming myself with the tools I need to create useful forms for my clients who need them.

    Having said that, I have to admit I am in a sticky situation due to the fact that I created a Designer XML form. The form in question is used to enter the results of medical background investigations for a client of mine. When the investigation is complete the user saves the form and begins another. At the end of the billing period we end up with a number of completed forms which I have discovered CANNOT be assembled into a PDF binder. I need to find a way to flatten the forms and I cannot seem to figure out how to do so.

    I realize that I can assemble the forms into a portfolio, but it ends up being much more difficult to navigate than the bookmarked binder. How would I go about creating a plug-in that will allow me to flatten a number of forms at once?

    Thank you for the help. I am still learning how to script and work with data, and I apologize for my ignorance.

  2. Stefan Cameron on August 6th, 2009

    Jason Hillman,

    I’m glad to know you’re finding the information you need on my blog!

    You can flatten an XFA-PDF form by printing it using the Adobe PDF Printer.

    As for writing a plug-in that would flatten a number of XFA-PDF forms in a single operation, I’m guessing you would have to use the JavaScript API for Acrobat and store the code in Acrobat’s JavaScript folder because it’ll have to execute in a privileged context (since you’ll be accessing files on the computer). I would look at creating a loop around the app.openDoc() and Doc.print() methods. Or, you could go the easy way and simply multi-select the files in Windows Explorer and choose the “Convert to PDF” command from the context menu.