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SEQU Actions File Reference

TheJason
Registered: Apr 27 2011
Posts: 2

I'm new to Actions and just started using Acrobat X Pro. I'm interested in manually editing action *.sequ files. After exporting and opening one in a text viewer it looks pretty straight forward. Is there a reference to the commands that are available. For example the following line adds a description to the action:
 
/Description [/t (Descrition goes here)]
 
I'd like a list of ALL options. Reason I ask is because i used the wizard to automate encrypting a PDF with a password, and i was only able to do so if i pre-populated a password. I found that by removing the actual password from the action file that it would then prompt me like i wanted, but keep all other settings that i predefined. So it's clear that not everything can be done from the actions wizard. The one i want to do next is to build a action that redacts all SSN numbers from a PDF, but i see no way to do this from the wizard (only Search and Redact certain words)
 
Any information would be helpful, thanks

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 10.0.2, Windows
thomp
Expert
Registered: Feb 15 2006
Posts: 4411
Actually, if you check the "Prompt" box on the "Encrypt" command in your action, Acrobat will display the password dialog.

It's unfortunate that they didn't include the same options in the Action Search and Redact as they did with the main redact tool. So if you want a custom search and redact it has to be done with JavaScript. Modifying the sequence file isn't going to help.

As far as I know the ".sequ" file format is one of several internal settings files that Adobe does not publish. The format is a variant of PDF format, just like the FDF file format and other Acrobat helper files. It was originally created for Batch Processing. And since it's text, the best way to figure it out is by creating Actions with different features and then examining the file. I don't think that there is a whole lot in there that needs to be figured out.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
www.pdfscripting.com
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TheJason
Registered: Apr 27 2011
Posts: 2
thomp wrote:
Actually, if you check the "Prompt" box on the "Encrypt" command in your action, Acrobat will display the password dialog.
Only issue with that would be if i use the Prompt box, then it displays the full "Password Security - Settings" dialog box with all of the options. By configuring all of those settings on that screen in the action wizard, then deleting the password from the seql file and reimporting i can get the action to only prompt for the password in a much simpler dialog box for the end user.

thomp wrote:
So if you want a custom search and redact it has to be done with JavaScript
You wouldnt happen to know any way to do this with javascript? Since i just started with acrobat X i'm not sure how to control things like that with javascript.

thomp wrote:
As far as I know the ".sequ" file format is one of several internal settings files that Adobe does not publish
Thats a shame. Like you said, it's not to hard to read the file and make changes that you want, but i have a feeling there has got to be some additional things that could be done outside of what the action wizard populates in there when you generate a file. I just noticed the links in your signature and will check that site out.
try67
Expert
Registered: Oct 30 2008
Posts: 2401
I just created a batch process (aka Action) to batch redact SSN's. You're welcome to have a look here:
http://try67.blogspot.com/2011/04/acrobat-batch-redact-social-security.php

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