Need FormCalc Script for sum of column in Adobe 8 Pro

I’ll try to make this short, with an emphasis on “try”.

My company has a standard form used by our customers. It is currently an MS Word document. For security and integral reasons, we would like to convert it to a PDF form. To facilitate this, I had Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional installed on my workstation.

Using the “Getting Started…” window that pops up upon opening the program, I imported the Word Document form into Adobe (which apparently uses LiveCycle Designer as the editor).

The jump from Acrobat Standard to Professional was larger than I thought. I have no background or experience with scripting. I can write a bit of HTML code but I usually have to look it up to make sure it is right.

My problem is I need a column of dollar amounts to total at the bottom and can’t get it to work on the client end in Reader. I just need the syntax for the script that will calculate the total for the values entered into a series of objects by the client. Don’t let my use of the vocabulary fool you. I’m totally stumped.

Ordinarily, my company would send me to a class to learn what I need to know. Unfortunately, our instructional vendor has yet to get back to me. Apparently they are having trouble finding someone qualified to teach Adobe 8 Pro. A book might work but time is of the essence here. The “higher ups” would like this form to go live as soon as possible. I’ll take the “do this and type that” shortcut for now and learn the ins and outs when I have more time.

I’m also wondering if it is possible to select and format several objects at once. To select a group of objects I’ve had to hold down Ctrl and click objects one by one. This is the only way I seem to be able to format more than one object at a time.

But that is another issue. The calculation/sum issue is much more of a problem. Oh and the built in function syntax was no help at all on this.

Thanks in advance for any assistance with the problem.