Attaching documents to completed interactive forms

This question comes up quite a bit. And the answer is that you can setup a LiveCycle PDF form so that end users can attach other files to it in Reader. But the problem is that "File Attachment" Reader Rights are not availible in Acrobat and have to be purchased separately. And they are very expensive.

It comes down to this. The Acrobat funtionality set is divided into those things that can be setup/enabled with Acrobat Pro, and those things that require special servers/plug-ins/tools. For the vast majority of us it's best to think about the second set as unavailible. They just don't exist for anyone who doesn't work for a deep-pockets organization.

The functionality you want falls into the second (unavailible) category. However, if you had built a regular AcroForm PDF, instead of a LiveCycle Form, then there would be a way around this dilema, and you users would have a way to attache other file types to the form before submission.

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]

Thanks for the info Thom. It looks like I should attempt AcroForm then, but have no idea what this is. Is this available in my Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 programme. Sorry I cannot open any of the video clips on this, my work environment seems to be restricting some downloads.

When I select the form wizard it seems to me that the designer life cycle is automatically used for the form design. If you refer to Acroform does this just mean that I start a form from a blanc page without the help of the wizard or is this another Acrobat product?

Thanks

AcroForm is the old fashion way of making forms with Acrobat. LiveCycle forms are still very new, they were introduced in Acrobat 7.

These videos will help you get started:
http://www.pdfscripting.com/public/34.cfm#FirstForm

If you are going to use an AcroForm form, then you're Reader users can add file attachemments with the "File" commenting annotation when the form is enabled for commenting.

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]

Dear Thom,
I have some questions regarding forms designed using Adobe LiveCycle Designer (Version 8.2.1.4029.1.523496).I tried so hard to find a solution /workaround to the following two issues, I hope you can help me
1) Is it possible to have a button to add attachments? I have a requirement where the user attaches his/her word and PDF format attachments and submits to an email. So far the form submits without attachments,(I have add attachments as shown (http://eslifeline.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/adding-attachments-to-pdf-form/) Girish Bedekar’s blog ) when I click add attachments it allows me to browse for the doc s and I can attach (see it in the list of attached documents).What I really want to do is to submit /Save the form with the attachments and when the recipient of the email opens the form to see the PDF as well as the attachments. Is it something possible to do? (Users should be able to fill the form and attach docs using Adobe reader 8 .)
2) Is it possible to submit a form designed using LC Designer as a PDF and XML at the same time? The requirement here is to have an xml of the form to send the data to a database using a workflow (which is working perfectly) but at the same time have the nice looking PDF for the users. I was thinking of having to submit buttons one for “Submit as PDF” and one “Submit as XML”, yet I don’t want the users to do to submit for one application form.
Can you please help?


Thanks ,
Ale

In order to attach a file in Reader the PDF has to be Reader Enabled for Embedded Files. Unless you have the Adobe Rights server, forget about it. This is not a viable solution.

However, for an AcroForm there are a couple of alternate solutions (AFIK there are no alternate LC solutions)

1. Use a File attachment annotation and Reader Enable the PDF for commenting. This used to work, haven't tried it in a while.
2. Use the "File Select" capability of a text field. You can read about it in the Acrobat JavScript Reference, look up the "field.fileSelect" property. Also read this article:
Browse for File Dialog