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LiveCycle and Excel Data

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Level 2

I am relatively new to LiveCycle and I have looked across the forums but haven't found solid answers to what I am trying to do therefore I was wondering if someone is able to answer my questions:

1. Can you setup a LiveCycle for so that it will read from a set of Excel data files (or converted CSV/XML files) at the time you launch the PDF with a LiveCycle form in it. We intend to create Graphs and Charts from the data and wanted it so that for these to be updated, all that needs to happen is that the data files are overwritten with a new set of data. Can LiveCycle do this, or does the data get embedded in the PDF at the time that the PDF file is published??

2. Could you put the PDF onto Microsoft Sharepoint and have the data files in a document library and then have the PDF form read the data from these files within the document library?

Thanks for any help with these questions.

4 Replies

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Level 8

Are you saying publish the PDFs using a LiveCycle server? I know you can use LiveCycle server to initiate workflows that would include what you are asking but I have no experience in this.

I use VB.net with an iTextSharp plugin to deploy all our forms. It takes the PDF and imports XML generated by our data architect from a shared drive to generate many PDFs into a production environment.

Kyle

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Level 10

Hi,

I already created dynamic forms for my customers with charts that can be populated at runtime from imported XML files.

This can be done with Acrobat or Reader, so you don't need a server.

If you're are interesed contact me via PM.

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Level 2

No my intention is not to use LiveCycle server. What I want is for a user to open a PDF and then the embedded charts will update at runtime from reading data from Excel/XML. From the end-users perspective they need to do nothing more than open the PDF and the publishing perspective of the PDF needs to be as simple as possible.

Graham

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Level 2

Thanks radzmar, that sounds similar to what we are needing to do, I have sent you a PM as requested.