Automatic posting of data from form into Access

[Former Community Member]

I am very new to Designer, and my programming experience is archaic, so I need a little help.



I am trying to see if there is a way to post data from a form directly to a specific Access database and table. I want to avoid having to actually open up Access, choose the database, then choose import from XML and select the appropriate option. I just want to click submit, and have the data automatically populate the right table.



Is there any current method to accomplish this?

[Former Community Member]

You can create an ASP page on your internet server.

The ASP page will collect the data an wright it to the access (jet engine or SQL-server) database.



/Ulf

[Former Community Member]

The Adobe Press book "Extending Acrobat Forms with Javascript" by John Deubert shows you how to do this. I used the book to do what you wanted (not through ASP or a webpage, but from a submit button on the PDF which opened a connection to an access database on the local network and added records to a table.) The book has nothing to do with Designer, just with Acrobat Professional. I'm now trying to "convert" the forms I made to a Designer version. There are some differences between javascript programed within the acrobat form and javascript programmed within Designer, so if you decide to get the book you might want to follow the examples first without using Designer, and then see what happens when you code the same thing in Designer.

[Thom_Parker]

If your database is accessible through ODBC on the computer the form is opened on, then you can create a direct connection between the form and the data base. There is a tab in Designer named "DataView". From this tab you create a connection to a database. This imports all of the fields in one table and displays them in the tab. You just drag and drop them onto the form. Of course you'll need some JavaScript to control the interaction, but accessing the DB it all built-in. You can find documentation for most of the scripting you need at:



http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/xml/topic.html



Thom Parker

WindJack Solutions


www.windjack.com

[Former Community Member]

Thanks everyone for the information.

[Former Community Member]

I need the same function...to get info from Designer forms into an Access Database. Chris, if you come back to this question, can you let me know what you've done to solve your situation?



As for others who answered, is this something a novice can do, or am I going to need some IT intervention? I have no experience in Javascript or other scripting. Unfortunately my programming experience is extremely archaic. I was a mainframe programmer in a prior life.



Deb

[Former Community Member]

Deb, this was only a very small part of a much larger project, and was only going to be a stop-gap measure. I have scrapped the entire system using Adobe products and am using an outside programmer to handle this entire solution. I was very surprised at how reasonably priced that was.

[Former Community Member]

As I looked into this, I began to think that was probably the best option for me as well. My boss wanted me to find a way to get forms out to customers via Designer for them to return with complaint issues, then have the info be dropped into an Access Data Base. I see no easy way to do this with the resources available and my abilities. I'm leaning toward getting someone to do it. Every time I post anything about this sort of thing, I get a lot of ideas all involving scripting and server stuff, which obviously I'm not equipped to do.

Thanks,

Deb