These forums are now Read Only. If you have an Acrobat question, ask questions and get help from one of our experts.

What works if JavaScript is disabled?

Forum Index > JavaScript > What works if JavaScript is disabled?
2010-01-11 02:54:57
Tinol
Registered: Jan 11 2010
Posts: 2
Answered

Hi everybody.

I have the following problem:
I have created an Acrobat Form for one of my clients. This uses JavaScript to send the form data as an FDF-file via e-Mail (I am using JS here to transfer some form data from the form directly into the email - e.g. a name that appears in the e-mail text body).
However, some of the people that have to fill out the form have now reported, that the "send"-function in Acrobat Reader is not working for them. This seems to be because due to security reasons JS is disabled on their client (as recommended by Adobe).
Now my question is: does anybody know what functions will still work if JS is disabled? If I was using the "Send Form" function instead of "execute JavaScript", would that be working? Are there any workarounds that would help? Are single extended Acrobat functions working while others are not due to the restriction of JS?

Thanks for your experiences!

Tino

My Product Information:
Reader 9.2, Windows
Top
2010-01-11 03:58:32
#1
try67
Expert
Registered: Oct 30 2008
Posts: 2398
Everything else...

And no, AFAIK there are no exceptions. If JS is disabled in the preferences, no JS functions will work under any circumstances.

- AcrobatUsers Community Expert - Contact me personally at try6767 [at] gmail [dot] com
Check out my custom-made scripts website: http://try67.blogspot.com

Top
2010-01-11 07:12:35
#2
UVSAR
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
When distributing documents with essential JS functions in them, you need to assume (at least for corporate recipients) that the majority will have JS disabled right now - many IT departments are sick of turning it off and on so just leave it disabled by default, and cubicle-dwellers tend not to have the permissions to bypass that setting. It is, after all, a security alert.

There's no way to design around it - with the 9.2 upgrades we have the option to turn off just the functions that need to be (and used it for the first time on this alert), however if you're distributing to people with legacy software that's no good (and again, many IT people can't be bothered rolling out the registry file - they tend to think all JS is unnecessary until you show them a reason you need it).

To avoid user confusion, it's sensible to add a page at the end of the PDF explaining that JS is required, and why; then set the document preferences to open on that page (prefs don't use JS so will still work). You can then add a document JS function that redirects everyone *with* JS back to page 1, so they don't get bothered by the message, but it'll be shown to those that need to read it.
Top