LiveCycle Reader® Extensions strike me out

[Former Community Member]

Yesterday I started investigating Adobe Designer 7 that came with my new copy of Adobe Acrobat Professional 7. Wow, now this looked exciting. I could create PDF documents that would function as forms with interactivity. Even more I could connect the form to a databaseand even better I could connect the form to a remote web service on the Internet.



I had to try this out. First I create a new document with a bit of text on it just for show, then from the File menu I select New Data Connection and then click the radio button next to WSDL file and enter the URL of a web service I had previously created in Visual Studio .Net. A further click on the Next button and then the Finish button and I had my data connection listed in the Data View pallet to the left of the document. Just drag and drop the text fields and execution button from the Data View palletand I am finished. That is all there is to it. I switch to PDF view, fill in the text fields, click the execution button, and I am almost immediately presented with the response data from the web service in the response text box. Beautiful! Boy Adobe has it all together.



I post the newly created PDF to one of my web sites and ask a few friends to try it out with Acrobat Reader 7. Guess what? Nothing happens for them. I try it out again with Acrobat 7, and it works as expected. What is going on? Well, you probably knew the answer all along. A quick investigation tells me that I have not purchased the Adobe® LiveCycle Reader® Extensions for what I gather is thousands of dollars in order to unlock all this functionality that I have just put into this document using another Adobe product, Acrobat 7.



So there is no joy in Mudville. But you can see my non-functioning example at http://www.lamartin.com/test/CostofLivingTest.pdf. Perhaps if you have Acrobat 7 it will work for you as for me. If you only have Acrobat Reader 7, you are out of luck.



I am certainly glad that Microsoft did not make me purchase an additional product in order to unlock the functionality in any aspx page that I create with Visual Studio.net in order for it to be viewed in Internet Explorer and do its thing.

[Former Community Member]

Hi,my friend

I meet the same problem and absolutely it is the same.

It seems that there is no way to solve the problem without purchaseing the Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions .



At the beginning of my project i used dataconnect in the Designer 7.0,but soon i found it can't works with remote database.

Then,i wanted to use XML,unfortunately it don't support the remote XML file.

Last,i learned web service.I met the problem which you met when i thought everything is ok.It is so disappointing.

I am working on it right now.

Don't give up and let you know when i find answer.

[Former Community Member]

I do believe you are correct about needing the Readers Extension to enable your form for users of the Free Reader product. But I have read that if the form is submitted through a web browser it may work with the free reader.

[Former Community Member]

I have the same problem. I tried using the Acrobat 7 Reader within MS Internet Explorer. No soap... What a bummer. I spent about a week working on a interactive form using Adobe Acrobat 7 Pro Designer. It works just fine in that software, but not in 7 Reader. If you find any solution, I would sure like to know about it.

[Former Community Member]

I am an Adobe's partner at Brazil and I can confirm the points above.



By the way...



About Microsoft dos not make you purchase additional products to run aspx pages it seems to be a big (if not huge) mistake about Adobe's products. PDF forms created with Designer are not comparable to aspx pages. They are completely different. If anyone see PDF Pages only as a substitute for aspx pages, this person is not prepared to work with this kind of tech. PDF forms are documents, not only an interface for data capture.



The form submitted through a web browser does not work with the free reader, as mentioned by "New but Quick", but is possible to submit form data to a cgi app using free reader. In truth, reader will not connect to a web service (soap), send filled form, save filled form localy, allow user to sign the form, and some other things. To do this it is necessary acrobat standard/professional or an extended pdf form (done by Reader Extension Server).



Well, if anybody needs more information, you can find additional information in http://www.adobe.com/products/server/readerextensions/main.html.



Regards.

Marcelo.

[Former Community Member]

Is the need to purchase the Reader Extensions related to both FormCalc and JavaScripting? I ask this because the script I use to populate a drop-down button is JavaScript and it works in the FREE Reader. The script I use to select the record from the DB is FormCalc scripting and it does NOT work with the FREE Reader. Can I make the assumption that if I convert the FormCalc to JavaScript, then every thing would work in the FREE Reader?



Do you think an Acrobat form can be duplicated with other software, like Access DB and MS Word, etc.?



Does anyone know about the pricing of the Reader extensions? Is it in the range of $10 or $1000?

Thanks for the info.

[_Aandi_Inston_]

> Can I make the assumption that if I convert the FormCalc to JavaScript, then every thing would work in the FREE Reader?



Check the JavaScript Reference. For each method it should tell you

whether or not the method works in Reader. You need to check every

method and property you plan to use. Also look for other important

notes e.g. about security.#



>Does anyone know about the pricing of the Reader extensions? Is it in the range of $10 or $1000?



I have heard 30K to 1M.



Aandi Inston

[iwhp]

My two cents comment: Adobe (and its product) is not a developer platform yet; hope that will change in the future because PDF is so important.



PDF will have to change definitly in the future. Look at Metro (from Microsoft), PDF will be XML as Metro will be (Adobe does it now with Designer; Acrobat 7 (Pro and Reader) can open XML-PDFs). If Adobe likes to play the game against Microsoft, they must stick to the developer and help them provider better expierence than in the past.



Postscript and PDF are history, there will be PDF-XML or what every they will come up with. And they will definitly have to change there server products, no-one really needs them as the way they are today.

[Former Community Member]

Okay, really... how come you cannot find a definite price for Adobe® LiveCycle Reader® Extensions. I can find all kinds of info on it, but no price tag... Has anyone seen anything more specific then "30k to 1m"? That is crazy.



mlg

[Former Community Member]

I talked to a rep from Adobe today and was told that the extensions were marketed to very large companies. He said that the cost started at $60K, really. He suggested for small business that they should just buy the Adobe Acrobat 7 Standard which the full retain price is about $300. The street price is much less. The 7 Professional is about $450 or less. Both will work. Nothing is FREE.

[Former Community Member]

The problem is that the reader extensions is payed on a number of users/number of forms basis. That is, if you want to buy reader extensions for a specific project you must license all the users that will use the forms OR you must license all the forms used in the project.

The prices are somewhat around $50 per user OR $1000 per form, which means that if you have a project with 5000 users accessing the forms, you're bound to pay something like $250.000 on user licenses...

If you are on a project that has lots of users and fewer forms, perhaps it's better to choose forms license, but if your forms license is bigger than the user's, then go for user license.

Nevertheless it is an insane price...I'm ok with paying for technological breakthroughs like this one, but this sounds more like an abuse.

Cheers.

[LoriBelleDeFuri]

I would like to clarify some points:

- SOAP will work in Acrobat (Std or Pro)

- SOAP will work in Reader *if* you have a Reader-Enabled PDF

- Many JavaScripts work in Acrobat and/or Reader - but you need to review the Acrobat JS Reference (http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/acrobat/sdk/AcroJS.pdf) to determine which JavaScripts work in which product.

[Former Community Member]

This is so frustrating. I'm a Lead Graphic Designer managing a team of 8 Designers, currently we use Word Documents in order to keep track of the client requirements, the old school way!

To improve and streamline our workflow I thought it would nice to use PDF forms. We currently have 8 Adobe CS licenses, which will allow the Designers to input and save Dynamic PDF forms (so the new implementation method will work) but what if I also want the few Project Managers and other internal employees to input and submit changes to the form... I need to purchase Adobe Acrobat Standard licenses or Reader extensions (which seems to be pricey) ... this is ridiculous!



If it's a "FORM" designer, the product should allow anyone to INPUT and SUBMIT the form.... this tool completely defeats its purpose.



I'm very disappointed.



Gpin.

[Former Community Member]

yes this requirement truly sucks

[_Aandi_Inston_]

I thought its purpose was to sell more copies of Acrobat... anyway,

Reader can input and can submit forms, can't it?



Aandi Inston

[Former Community Member]

My thoughts exactly. Seriously, how much is the server deal? It sounds comically cost prohibitive.



I can't gripe enough about having this great program that can create exactly what I need and then renders my forms useless to everyone else in my company unless they buy the big fancy version I have. I get calls everyday from co-workers wanting to know how to save their forms so they can go back and finish them tomorrow. We have HUGE forms with a gazillion fields. For legal reasons we don't want anyone going in and changing anything, so we haven't bought anyone else Acrobat. And without it they have to leave their Adobe Reader program running in the background all the time until they finish.



This is an unforgivable oversight for such a potentially perfect program....terribly, terribly frustrating.

[_Aandi_Inston_]

>My thoughts exactly. Seriously, how much is the server deal? It sounds comically cost prohibitive.



The price is decided by negotiation. Prices I have heard of vary

between $30K and $1M.

>

>I can't gripe enough about having this great program that can create exactly what I need and then renders my forms useless to everyone else in my company unless they buy the big fancy version I have.



Or Acrobat Standard. Adob'e plan is to add features to their

commercial products to make them attractive enough for corporations to

buy a copy for EVERYONE. You may not like it, but it's a business

plan.



Is there an alternative that doesn't involve buying software for

everyone? For example there are Word forms, but everyone has to give

money to Microsoft in that model. And Adobe are much nicer people.



What it is NOT by any stretch of the imagination is an oversight.





Aandi Inston

[Former Community Member]

I have scanned this tread very fast and of course it is possible that I have misunderstand a lot.

But it is possible to make interactive forms and use Acrobat Reader.

It is possible to save the forms on the server.

It is possible to reload "old" data.

It is not possible to save locally.

It is not possible to use webservices.

I do understand that Adobe want to make profit.

But I do believe that the best way would be to make fairly cheap service available to make the forms reader extension enabled.



I have made a simple demo on how to save and reload forms data with Acrobat Reader. You can find it on http://www.dtp-tjanst.com/Acrobat/PreLoad/PreLoad3.pdf . It is in Swedish but simle and easy if I say that Ärendenummer=Reckordnumber (of your choice), Hämta = Load, Spara is save, Ta bort = Delete, Radera data = Erase data.



/Ulf

[Former Community Member]

Hi Ulf ,



You give me a light of hope,could you so kind to show me the code of preload.vb.

Thank you very much.

[Former Community Member]

Hi Ulf ,

The PreLoad3.Pdf works in Acrobat 7.0 ,but it dones't work in Reader 7.0. The warning is "The Reader can't handle the content type..." than nothing happened.