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Internship Project - Help !

GSUIntern
Registered: Sep 8 2008
Posts: 15

I am a senior IT major at Georgia Southern University. I just began an internship with the school's College of graduate studies. Here is my job description:

Job description: Use a combination of Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Live Cycle to create easily editable, dynamic, XML based, PDFs. The current PDFs are static, with drop down boxes that have all available options shown. Many fields have to be filled in by the person filling out the form. This can lead to errors and extra processing time for the students, and it has also led to multiple versions of the same form being created for different colleges.
In the future, COGS may be moving to a LiveCycle server to manage its PDFs. Features such as digital signature fields and saving the documents in Adobe's XML PDF format should be used. Create a system to ensure that documents stay up to date when changes such as new majors are made. Document all changes to each form, the date made, and the reason for the change.

Currently there is no livecycle server and not yet on the way.

I am familiar with databases and html. Quick learner and motivated.

Where should I begin guys? I already have print and submittable pdf forms.
My first step is to figure out a plan of attack.

Thanks for your help. Hopefully thread will grow and evolve as my intern does.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro Extended 9.0, Windows
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1876
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/

is a good place to start.

There are a number of resources here, and you should be aware of the various forums at Adobe.com that are related to LiveCycle stuff: http://www.adobeforums.com/cgi-bin/webx/.3bbeda8d/

George
plevy
Expert
Registered: Jul 8 2008
Posts: 80
You may want to learn about Adobe's XML forms architecture. Embedded in the PDF is a big wad of XML that describes all of the contents of the form. Much like generating HTML from a database, you can generate this piece of XML to have the right contents in drop down menus, etc. Try out LiveCycle Designer (which is part of Acrobat). You can view the XML to get an idea of how it works. Specs are on the adobe web site.