pdf forms and web applications

[gribii]

Hi all,

Can anyone help me regarding the feasibility of using PDF forms in web application such as simple html forms?

As a part of the web application written in php, we have large html forms for collecting data.

pdf reports must be generated based on data entered in forms.

So, 1 filled in form = 1 pdf report. Generating large pdf files from scratch with php script is not fun, and I'd like to figure out if there is some way to use pdf forms created in Adobe LifeCycle as html forms.

So, we would like to publish pdf forms created in LifeCycle as a part of web application, where users fill in this form and in some way we pass form data to php script (upon form submit) for saving it in database and load data back to pdf form once user decides to edit it.

Once form is filled in completely we'd like to print it (and maybe save as separate pdf file containing all filled data).

Please advice, is there any solution for doing something like this, or maybe some other suggestions about simple pdf generation & forms handling in case described above?

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

[Former Community Member]

Certainly it is possible. You can generate the PDF forms out of Designer and put them on your web site. You woudl program the form to have a submot button where you can post the data from the form to your web server. A PHP script woudl then recieve the submission and you can do with it as you please. You can submit just the data in xml format, or name value pairs or you can send in the entire PDF. There is a final option where you can submit an XDP file which is simply an XML format that contaions both the data and the complete PDF. This is useful if you  need to put the data into a db like you are doing and you need to keep a record of the filled in form. Note that it is up to your PHP program to update the DB.

In your case it sounds like the forms are static in nature (meaning that once they are made into PDFs there is no meed to change them as well you are not merging data onto the form to prefill them). If you wanted a more dynamic form then Adobe sells a series of server based products that will create the PDF and merge data into the form when it is required. So think in terms of the users identifying themselves, your PHP program retrievs some data from a DB and LiveCycle will merge that data and create the PDF, in real time, and return the result to the user. There are also tools for separating the PDF and data on the server. These products are not required for what you have described but I thought that you shodul know about the option.

Hope that helps

Paul