Automatic PDF Form

[Stuart Rogers]

On 13/09/2012 2:23 PM, David Artman wrote:
> Goal: Upon generating a PDF, checkboxes appear next to each paragraph of
> a particular type, aligned right against the page margin. Can not use
> autonumbering, because the paragraph tag already has numbers. Can not
> manually create them in the PDF post-distillation, because we're talking
> about hundred of steps needing checkboxes--WAY too time-consuming.
>
> I am currently considering this method, using only FM 8 and Acrobat 9
> Pro:
>
>    1) Manually place a checkbox glyph into a text frame within an anchor
> frame that is set to "Run Into Paragraph" and aligned right.
>    2) Add some kind of label within the text frame (e.g., "Y", "OK" or
> "Done").
>    3) Copy-and-paste the anchor for that frame at then end of every a new
> para of that type.
>    4) Distill to PDF.
>    5) Open PDF in AcroPro.
>    6) Let the Form Wizard detect the labelled checkboxes and auto-create
> them.
>
> Works, but error-prone in many ways:
>
>    a) Writers forget to add the manually-placed frame.
>    b) TONS of other stuff can be detected as "form fields"; and their
> auto-created fields have to be deleted (could be more work than adding
> fields manually post-PDFing!).
>
> Ideas? I suspect there's a plug-in that will automatically do this, if
> setup right initially (or will do it wherever a special type of marker
> is placed--"half automatic" so to speak).
>
> Thanks in advance;
> David Artman
> david artman designs
> _______________________________________________



I'm not familiar with the form wizard, so can't deal with that; but 
there are ways to put in a checkbox glyph without messing up your 
autonumbering.  Turn on room for sideheads on the right side of your 
text frames.  Create a pgf tag with Side Head-Alignment at First 
Baseline and an autonumber with your checkbox glyph.  Set the Next Pgf 
Tag to your numbered step.  You might be able to do something similar 
with a tag defined as a right-aligned Run-In Head.  You could also use a 
2-column borderless table with the right-hand column cells formatted 
with the pgf tag I described first and the left-hand column cells 
formatted with your numbered step tag; updating the table definition 
would preserve that formatting in tables inserted subsequently.

And if you care to delve into pdfmarks, I think you could use postscript 
frames containing pdfmark code to create checkboxes.  You can find info 
about this here:

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat.html

HTH,

-- 
Stuart Rogers
Technical Communicator
Phoenix Geophysics Limited
3781 Victoria Park Avenue, Unit 3
Toronto, ON, Canada  M1W 3K5
+1 (416) 491-7340 x 325

http://www.phoenix-geophysics.com