These forums are now Read Only. If you have an Acrobat question, ask questions and get help from one of our experts.

Compile data from one field of a PDF form???

Forum Index > Forms: Acrobat > Compile data from one field of a PDF form???
2011-10-25 16:28:44
meredithb
Registered: Oct 25 2011
Posts: 2

Hi, I'm not sure if this has been answered somewhere else or not, but I'm clueless and can't figure out what I need to do to make this happen!
 
I work at a counseling office and we're trying to go paperless. I'm the only person on the staff who is familiar with using Adobe, so I created a PDF form in Adobe Acrobat Pro X on my Mac. Now the owner is starting up a newsletter and wants to be able to grab the e-mail addresses of the clients who elected to receive it and compile them somehow so that we will have a mailing list. Is there anyway to do this? I've tried inserting a "submit form" button for those who agree to receive the newsletter and had it set up so that it would only send me e-mail addresses, but I can't figure out a way to have those e-mail addresses automatically put into a spreadsheet or compile them in anyway. As of right now, we're having to go through each form and copy and past the e-mail addresses. Is there an easier way to do this? Please help!

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 10.1, Macintosh
Top
2011-10-25 16:57:02
#1
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1875
Yes, there's a much easier way: Tools -- Forms -- More Forms Options -- Manage Form Data -- Merge Data Files into Spreadsheet


Just select which PDFs to include and export to CSV, which you should be able to import into a spreadsheet.
Top
2011-10-25 17:05:13
#2
meredithb
Registered: Oct 25 2011
Posts: 2
I thought about that, but the problem is it exports ALL the data. The only information I need it to compile are the e-mail addresses for those who said "yes" to receiving the newsletter. I was hoping there was a way to make a submit button that would add it to a database of some sort? Probably not possible.
Top
2011-10-25 17:28:06
#3
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1875
You can either delete the unneeded columns once you open it in a spreadsheet, or create a batch sequence (Action) that exports just the single field to an FDF, and then use the same procedure outlined above, but select the FDFs instead. The JavaScript action to include in the Action could look like:

  1. /* exportAsFDF - email field */
  2.  
  3. // Array of field names to include in the export
  4. var fa = ["your_email_field"];
  5.  
  6. // Determine FDF filename
  7. var sPath = this.path.replace(/\.PDF$/i, "_exp.fdf");
  8.  
  9. // Export to an FDF file
  10. this.exportAsFDF({aFields: fa, cPath: sPath});
This will create an FDF for each PDF that has the same name as the PDF, but with "_exp" added to the end. Each FDF will only contain the email field name/value pair. You'd have to replace "your_email_field" in the code above with the actual name of the field that's on your form.
Top
2011-10-25 17:38:08
#4
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1875
I just realized you'd also want to add the field name of the check box (or whatever type) field that's used to indicate whether they want to receive the newsletter, or add additional code to filter out just those wanting to receive the newsletter. If you'd like help with that, post again and include more information about how the form is set up.
Top