How can I create an interactive purchase order form (#1) that automatically links to another purchase order form (#2) that is accompanied by an INVOICE that is generated once #1 is filled out? #2 would be given to the client with a 15% mark up. Also, is there a way to automatically generate a purchase order NUMBER that can be collected on a database that can be read and identified to whom the purchase order goes to?
There are a couple of different ways you can go with this, Local or Remote.
For a local solution the invoice would be another interactive form embedded into form#1. Scripts in Form #1 could then open the invoice and fill it out. If you want the PO number to be randomly generated, this could also be done locally, but if you want the PO number to be in a sequence with the existing PO numbers you'll need access to an external data source. If this is all local, i.e., the DB is on the users system and they are using Acrobat Standard/Pro on a Windows machine. Then the PDF can talk to the DB directly.
However, most PO/Invoice systems that I've worked with are much larger than this and involve sending things around to different people on different systems to people that are using Acrobat Reader. And data is stored on a remote server somewhere. This type of solution requires server software as well as scripting on the PDF. It's much more complex and expensive than the local solution.
Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
www.pdfscripting.com
Very Important - How to Debug Your Script