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Solsaere
Participant
February 17, 2018
Question

Bulk printing form with sequential serial

  • February 17, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 843 views

Hi,

I've searched around, but I've found very little related to what I need, so forgive me if this has been answered before.

I have a very old form+macro created in Word that has worked well up until now. Every time the document is opened, it fills a Serial field with a number stored in a separate .txt file, and adds 1 to the value. After it has done this, it prints the form through a printer driver that is set up to print from a specific drawer of our copier (heavy paper), to be filled out by hand.

Due to increased patronage, I need to create a form that allows me to bulk print 10 to 20 copies with unique serials at a time.

I'm ok with adding extra steps to the printing process, or selecting the printer driver manually each time, but I can't figure out how to have the serial iterate based on prints/copies. We already have Acrobat for other uses, and I love the designs possible through Adobe FormsCental, so I'd like to recreate this in Adobe if possible.

I think I could butcher the Word file to do what I need, but it's hardly a professional/elegant solution. I'd also need this to continue working if opened in Reader.

I'd really appreciate it if anyone can offer any advice, or direct me to the appropriate JavaScript(?) resources I need to make this happen. I've never made something like this before, so please forgive my ignorance.

Thanks,

Solsaere.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
February 17, 2018

You can use a script that loops from 1 to X (X being the number of copies you want to print), changes the value of a field in each iteration and then sends it to the printer. However, you will end up with 10 different print jobs, and also no record of the numbers used.

Another option is to create multiple copies of the same file with the unique codes (which can be exported to a text file, for example), and then merge those files and print them in a single command (or use an Action to print them one by one). I've developed such a tool, if you're interested. You can find it here: Custom-made Adobe Scripts: Acrobat -- Create Copies with Unique Codes

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SolsaereAuthor
Participant
February 17, 2018

Your tool sounds very close to what I need. Is it possible for it to keep track of the last number used within the document itself? I wouldn't need to keep copies of every generated page, or the .txt file of used numbers. I just need to make sure that the document keeps counting up from the last number that was printed. This is currently shared on a mapped drive, so I need to make sure that the number is consistent regardless of who is printing copies.

Thanks for your advice!

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
February 17, 2018

Sure, that's possible. Contact me privately and we could discuss it further.

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