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Theoretical Question - external distributing of populated forms

DeaneryPhil
Registered: Nov 26 2009
Posts: 3
Answered

Hi

I've been reading the forum posts with interest on this topic - some of which i admit is a bit beyond my current expertise. Can someone tell me please if the following is possible?

We have several thousand people we hold on a database. I've been asked to do a validation exercise where we email each of these people the information we hold on them, and they update it or tell us its ok.

From what I've read, I worked out its possible to populate a form from a data table and send that populated form over a network to users with access to the table. Is it possible to send a form out over the internet via email to each user, populated with their own data, that they can open on their computer with just Reader installed and no access to our database? ie, the data "stamps" into the form being sent to each person.

Is this possible? Sorry if this is an old topic but I've not been able to find an answer to this.

Thanks in advance.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.0, Windows
UVSAR
Online
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
It would be possible to generate the PDFs using a script (typically something like a PHP job, so you can load a "blank" PDF, query the database, add the fields, then email it to the user).

However - and it's a big however - the _Acrobat_ EULA does not permit you to collect back responses from more than 500 people (you can send out thousands, just not get them back). For any more responses than that you need to buy the extensions options in LiveCycle. If your PDFs are being generated by a non-Adobe scripted solution, and the responses aren't being collated in Acrobat, then of course the rules set by Adobe don't apply.
DeaneryPhil
Registered: Nov 26 2009
Posts: 3
Thanks UVSAR, that's really useful. I can take this back to my organisation and see what they want to do.

Much obliged!