Capture Data in PDF

Acrobat is built for exactly this sort of thing. But, if you are going to be creating forms you should have Acrobat Pro. You can create a form in Acrobat Standard 9, but it doesn't have the form distribution/collection features or Reader Enabling so it limits your options.

There are many, many different ways you can move data around with a Acrobat and PDF. It all depends on your requirements, budget, and capabilities. The easiest scenario is to use the Distribution Wizard in Acrobat Pro to set up the form for distribution and data collection. This is also a fairly inflexible methodology, but it's a good place to start.

The data collection functionality in Acrobat allows you to export data from a collection of forms to a CSV file. This is one very simple way to get data into your DB. There are much more sophisticated server based methodologies if you have the resorces to implement them.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Then most important JavaScript Development tool in Acrobat
[url=http://www.pdfscripting.com/public/34.cfm#JSIntro][b]The Console Window (Video tutorial)[/b][/url]
[url=http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2006/javascript_console][b]The Console Window(article)[/b][/url]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the quick response. I just viewed your video on the subject. It seems like a great tool.

The data I'm collecting is sensitive and I would like to import directly from the reply PDF into our SQL server. Can you point me in the right direction?

Thanks,

Bill

Dealing with Sensitive data is a problem. There is nothing built into the default Acrobat Capabilities for secure data handling. Probably becuase of liability and touchy technical issues. There are 3rd party tools for doing this though. And I think that the LiveCycle ES servers provide for secure data transmission. But now your talking big bucks.

Just in a general sense, writing a .Net app to import a CSV (exported from Acrobat) into your DB should be simple. So this is one way to go (somewhat manual and easy). But you really need to figure out the workflow you want to implement. And to do this you'll need to do some research on what's possible, and doable for your organization. PDF Form data handling covers a huge spectrum, from fully automated server based workflows to very simple, one form at a time, desktop based workflows. And there are several 3rd party servers and tools out there for doing many of these things. So the questions gets back to "What are your resources?", Do you have a server? programmers? A big budget? A team of IT professionals? Or is it one guy with no budget, staff, or programming skills?

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Then most important JavaScript Development tool in Acrobat
[url=http://www.pdfscripting.com/public/34.cfm#JSIntro][b]The Console Window (Video tutorial)[/b][/url]
[url=http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2006/javascript_console][b]The Console Window(article)[/b][/url]

Hi Thom,

Thanks again for the reply.

Small budget, couple of programmers, Microsoft shop large internal SQL db.

We cannot have the data submitted over an Internet web page We curently have it hand entered from printed forms that are mailed or dropped off... a manual process - applicants fill out a printed form, then someone types the data into the system.

I'm reviewing ways to collect the data via email. One way is to fill in an email form but that is dependent on the email client.

It appears that Adobe 9.0 Pro can create a form, save the results and we can then email the saved form.

The "gotcha" is I need to automate the data import process. We have a fairly extensive .Net application and a good bit of .net skills.

I do not want the PDF conencting to the server and then the user exporting to a .csv then importing into the db. I would like a set up where the .Net application reads the fields in the PDF, validates and loads the DB.

Thanks again,

Bill

Ok, so anything would be an improvement;)

Like I said earlier, there are a lot of different ways to approach a solution. You're comments narrow it down quite a bit, but you still have a lot of flexibility here. Let's say that you recieve the filled in PDF files in the email and then save them to a folder. You could even write a .Net app to do this part for you.

Once the forms are in a folder the data needs to be moved into the DB. There are PDF libraries out there for .NET. Just do a Google search on "PDF.NET". You could write an app that watches the folder and automatically parses any incoming PDF files and transferes the data. Or write a .NET app that gets the files directly off the email server, then does the data transfer into the DB.

A slightly easier, but more manual solution is to have Acrobat do the heavy lifting with JavaScript. Acrobat JavaScript has the ability to talk directly to an ODBC DB connection (the ADBC object). You could write an Acrobat batch process script that moves the data off the forms and into the DB through ODBC.

There are several different ways to create a solution.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Then most important JavaScript Development tool in Acrobat
[url=http://www.pdfscripting.com/public/34.cfm#JSIntro][b]The Console Window (Video tutorial)[/b][/url]
[url=http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2006/javascript_console][b]The Console Window(article)[/b][/url]