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Unable to export compiled form data to .csv and .xml

cmfnyc
Registered: Apr 25 2008
Posts: 5
Answered

To save teachers' classroom log data for one of our research projects, I put together a PDF Form using Acrobat Pro 8.1.2 for the Mac. Everything seemed to work fine. I created the unique, sequential fields for the form and tested it. Now we are trying to work with returned data and it's not going well.

I can compile the returned forms. And they display in Acrobat (though the form field titles are really impossible to read with the single-line column headers of the dataset pdf. To work with the data, we need to export it. And here's where it breaks down.

Acrobat is exporting an incomplete .csv file. When I open it in Excel, I get a "File not loaded completely" error message. If I open it in text edit or in SPSS (a statistical program), I don't get the error message, but I don't get the complete data, either. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong or what I can do to fix it? I have compiled about 13 returned forms with probably 500 or so fields each. I've tried both the export data button as well as the merge data command. Same result. I lose about 10 fields from the front of the documents (right after file name) and more than 10 from the back of the documents. Any help is greatly appreciated. I'm rather desperate. Yes, I've got only 13 forms in, but hundreds on the way. Yikes.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 8.1.2, Macintosh
thomp
Expert
Registered: Feb 15 2006
Posts: 4411
You're not the first person to report this problem. I believe that it is a bug in Acrobat. Contact Adobe support and see what they have to say.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
www.pdfscripting.com
Very Important - How to Debug Your Script

cmfnyc
Registered: Apr 25 2008
Posts: 5
Yikes! Thank you for replying. Is the protocol that I should accept your response as the unfortunate but true answer? Let me know thomp and I'll respond accordingly.
Thanks.
thomp
Expert
Registered: Feb 15 2006
Posts: 4411
Well yes, I'd appreciate it if you marked it as answered, although it's not much of an answer.

Somewhere on the Adobe site under support there's a contact us or report a bug link. You'll also find this on the Adobe Partners site and DevNet. I think you might have to be a member to get into these though.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
www.pdfscripting.com
Very Important - How to Debug Your Script