Why on Windows and not on OSX

[Former Community Member]

Why is LiveCycle not available for OSX. I curious as to weather or not the functions that LiveCycle has already exist on the Mac version of Acrobat pro or weather you must have a PC/boot camp and LiveCycle to utilizes them them.

[_Aandi_Inston_]

> I curious as to weather or not the functions that LiveCycle has already exist on the Mac version of Acrobat pro



Absolutely not. First let's get the product name: LiveCycle is a

range of products, most of them for (Windows, Unix and Linux) servers.

The exception is LiveCycle Designer, a form design tool.



Designer makes XFA forms, a completely new a different kind of PDF

form. It is totally incompatible, so much so that once you have used

Designer you can never use Acrobat again on the form.



What you may want to ask yourself is whether you would want to convert

to the specific features in Designer, and abandon Acrobat. It seems to

me more aimed at the corporate market.



Aandi Inston

[Former Community Member]

The above statement should be clarified a bit, as it could be misinterpreted. There are two types of Acrobat forms, both are "compatible" with Reader and Acrobat from and end user perspective. The incompatibilities mentioned are just in regards to form design.



XFA Based Forms: These are created using LiveCycle Designer (which is a windows only app). Once the .xdp file is converted to PDF users can interact with the document using Acrobat/Reader, however you will not be able to edit the form using Acrobat's form tools (to edit the form template you will need to go back to Designer). XFA based forms will still work fine on the Mac from an end user perspective (form fill, sign, submit etc...)



AcroForm: When you create forms using Acrobat, this results in an AcroForm. LiveCycle does support AcroForms for a number of operations (data extraction, assembly, flattening, archiving etc...), but if you want to route a form in Workspace and use the advanced features that XFA forms provide, then stick with XFA based forms.

[Former Community Member]

Thanks for the info. Although I realize that Live-Cycle is a Windows only program, is there any way or other software that allows you to perform these same tasks on a mac without using Live-Cycle Designer in boot camp.



Paul

[_Aandi_Inston_]

There do not seem to be any other tools to make XFA forms. But are you

sure you want to make XFA forms? They are different, in some ways more

powerful, but are not just the latest thing that everyone should

upgrade to. What specifically do you want from Designer's feature set?



Aandi Inston