Assembler invocation methods

[Former Community Member]

Hi,



i am approaching the assembler to achieve a document generation, that is from a *.doc a *.pdf. i am not working with forms!



Now, reading the overview.pdf of the assembler, it seems to me that the only way to route a client to it without using the workflow server (a too expensive solution for our costumer) is to to write your own java code for the assembler api. did i get it right ? and if, is there any examples of such a java code anywhere ?



Thanks a lot for your help



Valerio

[Former Community Member]

There should be a developer_guide.pdf in the Assembler/Documentation folder that is installed from your distribution. The chapter "Invoking LiveCycle Assembler Programmatically" covers the details. There is also working code in the Assembler/samples/src directory in the com.adobe.livecycle.samples.assembler7.servlet class that might be a useful place to start.

Don

[Former Community Member]

BTW, Assembler will attach Word (*.doc) documents to PDFs, but it will not convert a Word doc into a PDF. For that you would need LiveCycle PDF Generator.

Don

[Former Community Member]

BTW #2, I believe that a limited license for Workflow comes with the purchase of Assembler, so you should not need to discount the workflow based approach just because of cost. The workflow piece is included so that Assembler can be invoked through watched folders (which use workflow and I think are also included in the purchase) or web services (which are provided by workflow).

Don

[Former Community Member]

Hi Don,



Thanks a lot for helping !! I'll have a serious look ... oO ... to the source code you've suggested.



I have already installed the Generator cause i was aware of this conversion thing ;-)



Some more Questions on the Workflow solution:



1) so once i have the installation pack of the Assembler (containing LiveCycle_Assembler / LiveCycle_Assembler_QPacs / Watched_Folder) i just need to install these and not the Workflow Server?



2) and also the license for the piece of the needed Workflow is included in the one for the Assembler ?



Have i got it right? Thank you again,



Valerio

[Former Community Member]

Hi Valerio,

Here's what I know based on what I've actually done:



To use Assembler through an EJB interface, you don't need to install workflow. You just run the assembler installer and LCM and write the EJB client to your needs.



To use Assembler through a Watch Folder, you run the Workflow installer, then Assembler installer, then the Watch Folder installer, and then run LCM on all of them together. They all run in the same application server (JBoss in my case). Then you install workflow designer, deploy the QPacs, create a simple workflow, configure the watch folder to invoke the workflow, and start dropping files into the folder.



I have not run Assembler through a Web Service because I haven't needed to (yet). Assembler does not have a web service interface, but workflow does, so in this case it would look a lot like the watch folder setup except you could skip the watch folder installation and configuration. You'd still need to set up a simple workflow to invoke assembler, and then call the workflow through the web service.



I happen to have a full Workflow license, but I was told by a reliable Adobe source that purchasing assembler includes a "limited" workflow license so that you can use the watch folder and web service to invoke assembler. I don't know exactly what the limits are or how they are enforced. But the overview page seems to implicitly confirm this: http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/assembler/overview.html



I hope this helps.

Don

[Former Community Member]

> I happen to have a full Workflow license, but I was told by

> a reliable Adobe source that purchasing assembler includes

> a "limited" workflow license so that you can use the watch

> folder and web service to invoke assembler.



Hi Don,



are you sure about this?

Or is there anybody elso out there who can confirm this?



Thanks



Rainer

[Former Community Member]

Yes, I'm certain. Your sales rep should be able to confirm it as well. Section 2.8 of the Assembler license specifies the restrictions on using with Assembler with Workflow if you have not purchased the full Workflow software.

Don

[Former Community Member]

I am deeply impressed. somebody's actually reading the license agreements ;-)



thanks a lot, that was very helpful!



rainer

[Former Community Member]

Thanks this is awesome information, I am glad someone is taking the time to post what they learn.



Shane Ryans


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