_uacct = “UA-1416026-2″;urchinTracker();_uacct = “UA-1416026-1″;urchinTracker();You know, we here in the Adobe Camp seem to get locked in on the Ad-Hoc based work flows. Or, workflow’s that are not planned out or enterprise wide! Acrobat forms and the Adobe Designer are good examples of this. I have even fell into this trap here in the blog and on the Podcasts. I have totally forgotten about the web based workflow’s, well thank you Liz for e-slapping me back to reality!Ok here we go, let’s lay it out, I want to create a form to collect some data, but instead of sending it out through e-mail, I want to post it on my web site and collect the data from there. Something we do every day! So for this one I am going to use a standard template in the Adobe Designer (sorry Mac Folks, I will post one later on how to do this on a Mac, I have to see if I can steal a Mac from one of the programmers!) put a link on a web site, fill in the form, then submit it, and collect the data in an Acrobat Package. For a reference see these two blog’s that relate to forms data collect Here and Here.

1. Start up Adobe Livecycle Designer and select one of the standard templates, in this case I used the “Contact Information” template
2. Next you will see a series of dialogue boxes that will ask you to fill in company data, logo’s, stuff like that you can bypass those or fill them in, I filled in the first two for fun
3. After a few screens you will get to one that asks you to add buttons to your form uncheck those as we will be adding a custom submit button latter.
4. Now you will see your form, go to Standard under the Library, and select HTML Submit Button place it on your form
5. Now that you have your button go to the object panel and add a URL that is where you what the data to come back to. Here I used my e-mail address, you can use a generic e-mail like data@something.com or have it post to your web site, the only problem with that is you have to manually combine your data (I’ll cover in another post), so the string you put on the URL block is (for e-mail) mailto:thuff@adobe.com exactly like that, but with your e-mail please!
6. Some notes on HTML Submit
7. Submit to URL – Sets the location of a web-hosted server. You can specify the ftp, http, https, or mailto protocol.

8. Ok now save the form in Acrobat LiveCycle Designer to some where you can find it. And open it in Acrobat 8 Professional or Acrobat 3D version 8. Once you have it loaded in Acrobat, go to the Forms pull down and select Distribute From
9. Here is the only real difference from anything we have done before, instead of sending now, we Save and send later
10. We run through the Distribute Form wizard
11. Take care when setting the location for the forms collection, if you use a generic e-mail address, you may have multiple people opening these e-mail, these people must have read and write access to the data collection location!
12. This just gives your form a name and a place to save the workflow enable version. This form is also enabled for the Adobe Free Reader
13. You can add this to your forms library.
14. You can get to the forms library by going to Forms, and select Track Forms
15. This takes you to the forms/review tracker, a nice tool to help you keep up with your forms, reviews and it has an rss reader, here do this, click the blue RSS button, hit the green Subscribe Plus and click here or type http://feeds.feedburner.com/IDidntKnowAcrobatCouldDoThat that will let you keep up with this blog…Ok so that’s a little self promotion, sue me
16. I am not going to cover how to put a link on a web site as I am sure you have IT guru’s for that, but I added a link to my form on a mock web site
17. I am presented with the form in my browser or in Acrobat (it is according on how you have your preferences set), and once I have filled in the form, I can hit either of the Submit buttons
18. Since we said Submit by e-mail, we will open this dialogue box and ask the user to submit with their desktop e-mail or save to their computer and use another e-mail solution by attaching the PDF form to it.
19. Here is what I see in my in box, I have 3 forms returned back to me
20. All I do is open the e-mail, double click the attachment, and it will ask you if you want to add it to a data collection, you say yes, and if the collection directory has not changed, it will be found automatically or it will allow you to search for it.

And that’s it! Data collection over the web, now that wasn’t too tough was it? My goodness it is late on a Saturday night, I still need to post some soccer pictures before I can go to sleep! And remember to keep some life in you life! Watch the podcasts!Keep a smile on your face this holiday, enjoy the gift of giving, help someone you don’t know!Tim

_uacct = “UA-1416026-2″;urchinTracker(); _uacct = “UA-1416026-1″;urchinTracker();Ok, in Acrobat 3D version 8 and in Acrobat 8 Professional you know by now we have direct import of DWG and DWF files. This extension will help you by not making you purchase extra seats of AutoCAD for prople that are not designers. It is so easy that we don’t need any pictures for this one. Just open Acrobat 3D Version 8 (hey there is a free 30 day trial just click here) and Drag and Drop the 3D DWG Autocad file (2007 or older 2008 support coming soon) and you will get the data imported in! Simple! You get both Model Space and Paper Space into your PDF file. Now let me set the rules for you here. If your AutoCAD 3D is Wireframe, Acrobat 3D does not magically make it a solid, so the import will bring in what ever state the model is. We do not sew or knit surfaces into solids.And that’s it, too easy! That’s it for this entry. To see a video of this process click hereHave fun and remember to keep some life in your life.Tim Huff

Keep some Life in you Life!

Tim

_uacct = “UA-1416026-2″;urchinTracker();_uacct = “UA-1416026-1″;urchinTracker();So let’s see, you’ve done everything you know of to get the PDF Maker Addin to work, well there is one thing that I have held back on, a registry edit that will bring them back. This approach is not for the faint of heart, but it is a very easy (as registry edits go) fix and if you do just what I say here (no clowning around in the reg please) then you can’t hurt your machine.Take a deep breath, relax, take a big swig of Redbull and let’s do this thing!Ok first off, this works with both Windows XP and Vista.

1. Go to the Start Menu and select Run (in Vista you must go to Start Menu, Accessories, Run)
2. On the Run Dialoge box you will see a Browse Button, select that and go to c:\windows\regedit.exe (you can also type it in)
3. You should see the Registry Editor come up and look like this
4. Now expand the key by selecting the small arrow to the left of the folder icon
5. Keep expanding till you get to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\Addins\PDFMaker.Office.Addin (whew, that took a while)
6. Now click on PDFMaker.Office.Addin you should see something similar to what is shown here on the right side panel
7. Ok almost done, Double Click LoadBehavior and type in 3 make sure the dialoge looks like this:

That is it, now go back to Word and See if it is there, if not, follow the procedure outlined in the previous post.Ok it’s early on Tuesday morning, so I better get to the office, Keep some life in your life!Tim

Keep some Life in you Life!

Tim

Well just thought you would enjoy that, so please as always, keep some life in your life, and show a little love!

Tim

Oh yes and if you have any suggestions on what you would like for me to cover in the podcast or this blog please enter it in the comment area!

Ok, this is a bit of justification for us here at Adobe, Now please, I am not Microsoft bashing here, but, The boys in Redmond, took the high road on this threat vector and blamed us, along with any other company that creates PDF’s saying it was our problem.

_uacct = “UA-1416026-2″;urchinTracker(); _uacct = “UA-1416026-1″;urchinTracker();Bill Sisk, a member of Microsoft’s security response team wrote in a blog post Thursday. “Because ShellExecute is a core part of Windows, our development and testing teams are taking extra care to minimize application compatibility issues.”For example: The vulnerability allowed a malicious PDF file to turn your PC into a zombie, so, after three months of sloughing off the problem to third parties Microsoft is now scrambling to fix it. It may take another two weeks or more to get a patch.Microsoft isn’t due to issue another patch batch until November 13.The urgency and transparency Microsoft is showing is commendable. But let’s not forget that for more than three months, Redmond’s security pros maintained that weaknesses resulting when third-party applications passed malicious uniform resource identifiers (URIs) to Internet Explorer was “not a vulnerability in a Microsoft product.” As such, Redmond maintained, responsibility for plugging the hole lay elsewhere.Two weeks ago, Microsoft, reversed itself on this position, admitting for the first time that the URI-handling weakness was an issue that had to be addressed by Microsoft. The change of heart came as it became increasingly clear that the URI-handling weakness was doomed to repeat itself over and over on countless third-party apps. As Bill Sisk put it, “…these third party updates do not resolve the vulnerability – they just close an attack vector.” “In the meantime, users should take extra care when receiving email attachments, even when delivered from known sources, and when visiting familiar or unknown websites”, Sisk said. Notice here that Sisk said all e-Mail attachments, because, this threat can attach itself to almost any attachment!By the way, Sisk didn’t mention updates we, Adobe, have issued here for Reader or here for Acrobat, but installing them immediately is critical to keeping you safe.Ok, man that was a bit heavy for a Tuesday morning, but, it is very important stuff. Keep some life in your life and watch out for the boogie man!Tim

_uacct = “UA-1416026-2″; urchinTracker(); _uacct = “UA-1416026-1″; urchinTracker(); But, I have to say this method has its limitations. Today in Acrobat 8, stamps have no way of detecting selection, or gathering input. Your probably saying to yourself, whoa there Timmy boy, your starting to talk crazy again. But really I’m not! Many questions I have been getting is, “Tim, this is a cool tip and trick, but, I would like to have a field that would allow me to add an invoice number, or have a couple of check boxes, why is this not working?”Well, it is working as it is programmed. In Acrobat, the stamps are dynamic, not interactive. So what that means is we can extract data from sources such as who is logged in, what is the system date….think of it as a “pull data system”. So all of the “push style” data such as Digital Signatures, or check boxes, radio button, or what I call interactive data types aren’t supported. The reason is easy to see when you look at the stamp you place, it is an annotation, or a mark up. Double click a stamp and you will see a pop-up that will allow you to add notes like a red line mark up. But you can not click individual objects with in the stamp.With that said, the programmers here at Adobe are amazing people, and if I where a betting man, I would say that making a Stamp an interactive object is on someones plate. I will let them know that all of you would really like to see such a feature. Let me know what you think!Well, I better go, watch the Cowboy game here, so put some life in your life, and smile and say Hi to a stranger today!Tim Huff

_uacct = “UA-1416026-2″;urchinTracker();_uacct = “UA-1416026-1″;urchinTracker();You know that there are a lot of commands in Acrobat that just do not have a button or a pull down item to get to them. So, I am going to open the pandora’s box to the unknown and really killer keyboard shortcuts in Acrobat. If you read this blog you know that I am a PC guy. But, I am embracing the Mac Platform. I am an old engineer so I love Unix (the VI editor rocks!) So, this list will show all the short cuts that ship in the box. So here you go Down Load the Acrobat 8 Pro keyboard Short Cuts.Keep some Life in your lifeTim

_uacct = “UA-1416026-1″;
urchinTracker();
Hey all, Adobe is sponsoring a 3D PDF contest for you to show off your coolest 3D PDF files.

Example:

3D Trailer Example by Tim Huff

_uacct = “UA-1416026-2″;urchinTracker();_uacct = “UA-1416026-1″;urchinTracker();You could win some cool prizes by simply sharing your great work.The contest is open to 2D and 3D CAD users as well as Technical Publishers from all industries that are using Acrobat 3D.Entry is straightforward with several easy options:

• Share your existing 3D PDF files. All files will remain Adobe Confidential.
• If you’re not a current Acrobat 3D user you can even use the free trial version of Acrobat 3D to convert your existing 3D models into a 3D PDF

Entrants could win valuable prizes that include a Dell Precision M4300 laptop, Apple iPhone, Apple Video iPod, 3Dconnexion navigator, Adobe software and more.Winners will also receive recognition on the Acrobat 3D website as well as on the Acrobat User Community website.The contest runs from Oct 15, 2007 until Jan 31, 2008.Full details at HERE Get to the Entry Form HereSo I look forward to judging some of your killer 3D creations.Have fun with this and remember to put some life in your lifeTim