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Participant
May 4, 2016
Question

Adobe forms and print/email buttons

  • May 4, 2016
  • 4 replies
  • 1661 views

I need to edit a PDF form but when I try to open it in Adobe Acrobat DC, it says I need Adobe LiveWire.  I guess the original document was created using this software. I would like to test this before I buy it but apparently there is no free trial available for this software, therefore, I believe my only option is to recreate the form from scratch.  I would also like to add a print button and a submit by email button so that someone can either print the document and submit or save it and email it to be printed.  As far as I can see, it is not possible to do this in Adobe Acrobat DC.  Can someone tell me which Adobe software can help me with these requirements? 

I believe you used to easily be able to add print buttons to a form using Adobe Acrobat Pro.  It is very frustrating that Adobe seems to always take features out of their software.  It makes it very confusing for customers to understand which software they need to use as it seems to be constantly changing.

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4 replies

Participant
May 5, 2016

I've recreated all of the form fields and added a new button for submit email, but still don't know how to create a print button.  Anyone know how to do this?  Is this not possible with Acrobat DC?

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 5, 2016

Create a button and as its MouseUp action select "Execute a menu item" and the File - Print.

Participant
May 5, 2016

Thank you very much! 

Inspiring
May 4, 2016

Using Acrobat DC to set up a form to print and email is certainly possible, so this hasn't been taken away. They have made it so you have to use form editing mode to do certain things that you could do in normal editing mode though. To go into form editing mode in Acrobat DC you'd select "Tools > Prepare Form", or press the A key if you have keyboard accelerators enabled.

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 4, 2016

If you have the Adobe PDF printer then you can print the file to it and generate a new copy, so you won't need to create it from scratch. Then you will just need to the form fields and you're done.

Legend
May 4, 2016

There is no (as far as I know) product named Adobe LifeWire. I presume that it did say "LiveCycle" (or LifeCycle Designer).

Such a tool does indeed exist, and it has been bundled with Acrobat Pro for Windows for several versions. It is no longer bundled, but has to be acquired as a separate software.

The form looks as if it were an XFA form (created with LifeCycle Designer), and not a PDF form. If so, it is not Adobe taking away features from software, but it was a (in hindsight) wrong decision of choice of creation tool by the original creator of the form. Although there was a time when the Adobe doctrine was "XFA über Alles", and it is well possible that the original creator of the form got tricked onto that line.

(disclaimer: I have been noodling around with smart PDF forms (using Acroforms technology) pretty much since it became publicly available, and therefore, I may be "a little bit" biased…).

andrew_robbins100
Participant
October 18, 2024

Adobe LiveWire was an old editing tool used to work with the jave that's in the back of pdf's.