Merging data with LiveCycle questions

[Former Community Member]

I have LiveCycle Designer 8.0 and I didn't find a forum for it so just point me in the right direction if this is not the place.

I have a couple of questions with merging data with Livecycle PDFS

1. XDP is the file format for merging data with LiveCycle created PDFs (FDF was with Acrobat)? if not, what is the format?

2. We want different colors of the same PDF without actually making the different PDFS, is there a way we can do this through the merging the data?  For example: In the XDP file, we specify the color of the border of a rectangle.  When the PDF merges with the data, will the PDF be able to change the border of the rectangle with the specified color?

3. Can a picture (a specific size) be merged in the PDF?

Thanks!

[Former Community Member]

1. XDP is the file format for merging data with LiveCycle created PDFs (FDF was with Acrobat)? if not, what is the format?

An XDP file is simply an XML file that packages a PDF file in XML, along with XML form and template data. Data can be merged from generic .xml or the XML version of FDF called XFDF.

2. We want different colors of the same PDF without actually making the different PDFS, is there a way we can do this through the merging the data?  For example: In the XDP file, we specify the color of the border of a rectangle.  When the PDF merges with the data, will the PDF be able to change the border of the rectangle with the specified color?

Yes. Consider a field called 'firstName'. I can add a script to the form:ready event that checks the value of the data merged with the field and changes the border edge color to red if the data is not equal to 'Steve'.

// customer.page1.firstName::ready:form - (JavaScript, client)

if (this.rawValue != "Steve") {

     this.border.edge.color.value = "255,0,0";

}

3. Can a picture (a specific size) be merged in the PDF?

Yes.

Steve

[Former Community Member]

I tried created a small form with just the fields Name and Address but it did not work with the xfdf.  I am using Adobe Livecycle 8.0 and saved the PDF as Adobe 7 Static.  I have attached the two examples in case you were wondering.

[Former Community Member]

I think it is a result of the Preview type (File > Form Properties > Preview) being set to 'Print Form (one-sided)'. I changed it to 'Interactive Form' and added the attached XFDF file as the preview data file and it worked successfully.

Steve

[Former Community Member]

For some reason when I double click on the file it does not open up the PDF with the data filled in.  What I want to do is to double click on an XFDF which will contain some data for merging.  That XFDF will then open up the PDF with all the data merged into it.

We want to put this on a web server so anybody can just go to //localhost/test.xfdf and then the PDF will be show on the page (and not the contents of the test.xfdf which is just xml text) with the data in the fields.  All of this is done outside of the LiveCycle 8.0, no merging or preview data file inside of the designer.