LiveCycle Doc team

Where to start
If you are new to Designer ES, start with one of the tutorials. If not, you can look at one of the sample forms installed with Designer ES. The sample forms illustrate form design techniques, from simple to complex. Each sample is accompanied by a form design, sample data and/or schema, as well as the final version of the form. If one of the sample forms suits your requirements, use it as a starting point. The sample forms are installed in the EN\Samples\Forms folder under the LiveCycle Designer ES installation folder.

See Quick Start Tutorials in Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES Help.

Build compatible forms
Make sure that you determine the version of Acrobat and Adobe Reader that people will use to fill the form. Setting the correct target version ensures that the form designs that you create are compatible.

See Target Version in Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES Help.

Design for reuse
Use fragments if you are planning to use the same element in multiple forms. Using fragments makes updating the common elements much easier.

See Using Fragments in Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES Help.

Consider security
You may want users to enter a password for such things as opening, printing, copying text or applying signatures. When designing interactive PDF forms it is important to ensure that your forms and the data you gather is secure. Designer ES includes many functions and features that provide security options for your forms.

See Setting Security in Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES Help.

Make forms accessible
An accessible form is one that is simple and usable. A simple layout of controls and fields with clear, meaningful captions and tool tips will make the form much easier for all users to fill.

See Creating Accessible Forms in Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES Help.

How it's done
It is easier to start with the layout of the form and then add the dynamic parts, and scripting. While designing the form, preview it often. Previewing ensures that your form designs look and behave the way you intended. Here is an example of the workflow you might use to create a form design:

Set the target version.
Set the form size and define master pages.
Add the form elements (title, header, body, footer),
Set tabbing order.
Test the form with users.

Posted by Ginette Thibault at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adobe LiveCycle ES provides a sample web application called Forms Installation Verification Sample (IVS). This sample is a web-based application that interacts with the Forms ES service to generate interactive PDF forms, HTML forms, and form guides that users can fill and submit. After you deploy the Forms IVS, you can use a web browser to render form designs created in LiveCycle Designer ES for testing purposes. Another use for the Forms IVS application is for debugging the forms in isolation from the rest of your LiveCycle ES application that was created in LiveCycle Workbench ES.

Continue reading "Forms IVS – A Form-tastic Development and Testing Tool" »

Posted by Gilbert Yu at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is not an official Adobe endorsement.

There, I said it. Now that we have that out of the way, I thought I’d share a reference that I’ve come to respect over the last year or so.

http://formulate.com.au

I had the good fortune to meet Ms. Enders at the Business Forms Management Association (BFMA) symposium in Las Vegas last year. I was impressed by her presentation on form design techniques, not the least of which because it seemed like a topic that a lot of form design professionals at the symposium were eager to learn more about. In particular, check out Ms. Ender’s articles section (http://formulate.com.au/articles/). There’s a lot of good information in there that I think is worthwhile reading, for experienced form design professionals and newcomers alike.

Design, and design thinking, is really becoming integrated into all facets of business these days, and it only makes sense that it plays a large role in terms of how organizations implement form solutions. How best to capture user data, I learned at the symposium, is not something that is always well understood. Contemporary research into user behaviors and more effective design is often overlooked by form solutions, which really means that the poor individual who must fill out the form -- sometimes called a “customer” -- is left to suffer. Then, of course, it’s the organization that suffers through additional costs and inefficiencies associated with data entry errors.

Ms. Enders is just one of a number of people out there who are bringing some formal design principles and research to the form design space. If you have links to other sources that you have found useful, please comment directly to this blog and share. We’re always curious to know who our readers are reading, and I’m sure other readers would be interested to know as well.

Have a good day.

Posted by Alex Mitchell at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Visible (Print Only) option is available in the Presence list on the Object palette. When you apply the Visible (Print Only) option to an object, the object appears only when the form is printed, and does not appear when the form is viewed on-screen.

However, when you select Acrobat and Adobe Reader 7.0.5 or later as the target version for a form, and apply the Visible (Print Only) presence option to a button object, the option may not work on the following versions of LiveCycle Designer:

- LiveCycle Designer 7.0 and 7.1
With dynamic PDF forms that are migrated to LiveCycle Designer 9.0 and then opened in Acrobat or Adobe Reader 8.0 or later, the Button object may be invisible when the form is printed.

- LiveCycle Designer 9.0
With static and dynamic PDF forms, the Button object may still be visible on the screen when you view the form by using the Preview PDF tab in LiveCycle Designer 9.0 or open it in Adobe Acrobat 7.0.5 or later.

Note: This issue does not occur in Adobe Acrobat 8.0 with dynamic PDF forms.

To resolve these issues, you must carry out these four steps for each Button object that you want to show or hide in Acrobat and Adobe Reader 7.0.5 or later:

1. Click the Button object, and in the Language list in the Script Editor, select JavaScript.
2. In the Presence list on the Object palette, select Invisible.
3. Copy and paste the following script into the prePrint event in the Script Editor.
this.presence = "visible";
4. Copy and paste the following script into the postPrint event in the Script Editor.
this.presence = "invisible";

Posted by Drew Brazil at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's getting close to tax time here in Canada and I’m thinking about my retirement plan contributions. While looking at the Federal tax form online, I thought about how nice it would be if the form could calculate an amount based on my input. So I created a little script in LiveCycle Designer ES that calculates how much I can deduct based on my Registered Retirement Savings Plan (RRSP) contributions. Of course, the percentage I used for the calculation is purely fictional and the Canadian Government would never let me send in my own version of the form!

I used the response method to create the dialog box that contains the question and entry field. The following message box appears when I tab to the field.

Here is the calculated field:

To create the calculation in this example:
1. In Designer ES, drag a Decimal Field object onto the form design.
2. In the Field tab, select a pattern for the field. In this example I selected a predefined display pattern (num{($z,zz9.99)}).
3. In the Script Editor, select the Enter event, JavaScript language, and run the script at the Client.
4. Copy and paste the following script into the Script Editor.
var RRSPResponse = xfa.host.response("What is your total RRSP contribution for the year ?", "RRSP Contribution", "", false);
$.rawValue = RRSPResponse * 0.536;
5. Save the form as a PDF file.

Now you try it and have fun!

Posted by Ginette Thibault at 3:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

You can add common layout and background elements to a form design using master pages. A form design is the design-time version of a form that you create in LiveCycle Designer ES. By default, all new form designs have a master page, which is applied to the first page. Any page that you add to the form design is formatted according to the layout of the default master page unless you create and apply different master pages to other pages.

At the very least, master pages can define the orientation and dimensions of pages. For example, you can create one master page for portrait orientation and a second master page for landscape orientation. In more complex forms, you can use master pages to adjust the size and position of content areas, add page numbering, company logos, and create single- or double-sided features (such as headers and footers).

Continue reading "Adding common layout and background elements to a form design" »

Posted by Ginette Thibault at 3:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When you create calculations and scripts in LiveCycle Designer ES, you should be aware that the objects on which you are adding scripts are actually defined as XML objects in the underlying XML Forms Architecture. That means while the Standard tab of the Object Library palette contains a wide variety of objects, many of those objects are defined by the same XML object. As a result, the various scripting properties and methods that are available are based on the definition of the XML object, and not the object in the Object Library palette.

Continue reading "Understanding relationships between objects in the Object Library" »

Posted by Alex Mitchell at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Here are a few easy ways to improve performance when using the Output service with forms.

Continue reading "Tips for maximizing Output service performance" »

Posted by Scott Brodersen at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When customizing the tabbing order sequence between objects on a form, you may sometimes want to exclude certain objects on the master page from the sequence, but without using the Protected option on the Value tab to do so.

You can do this by applying a setFocus method on the objects you want to exclude. The script excludes an object by changing the focus to the next object in the sequence. That is, when you tab to an object on which the setFocus script is applied, the script automatically executes and moves the focus to the next object.

For example if you have a Button object on the master page that is not protected, you can apply the following JavaScript on the onEnter method.

xfa.host.setFocus(this.parent.nextButtonInTabSq);

Keep in mind that the setFocus method configures the object to always jump to the scripted target; the object will no longer be included in the tabbing order displayed on the Tab Order palette.

To learn more about Scripting, go to the LiveCycle Designer ES Help and search for Scripting.

Posted by Drew Brazil at 12:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When customizing the tabbing order sequence between objects on a form, you may sometimes want to exclude certain objects on the master page from the sequence, but without using the Protected option on the Value tab to do so.

You can do this by applying a setFocus method on the objects you want to exclude. The script excludes an object by changing the focus to the next object in the sequence. That is, when you tab to an object on which the setFocus script is applied, the script automatically executes and moves the focus to the next object.

For example if you have a Button object on the master page that is not protected, you can apply the following JavaScript on the onEnter method.

xfa.host.setFocus(this.parent.nextButtonInTabSq);

Keep in mind that the setFocus method configures the object to always jump to the scripted target; the object will no longer be included in the tabbing order displayed on the Tab Order palette.

To learn more about Scripting, go to the LiveCycle Designer ES Help and search for Scripting.

Posted by Drew Brazil at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

LiveCycle Designer ES lets you create and print RFID labels to capture data. RFID (radio-frequency identification) is an automatic identification technology whereby digital data that is encoded in an RFID tag or smart label is captured by a reader by using radio waves. It is similar to barcode technology but uses radio waves to capture data from tags, rather than optically scanning the bar codes on a label. Using RFID does not require the tag or label to be seen in order to read its stored data. [obtained from zebra.com.]

For example, airports use RFID labels for labeling luggage. RFID readers can accurately capture the information and flight details for each item that passes through a baggage handling system, regardless of its orientation or the speed of the conveyor. Some tags can even be immersed in water and continue to function with the same accuracy!

Continue reading "Using LiveCycle Designer ES to create and print RFID labels" »

Posted by Ginette Thibault at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)