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Inspiring
February 15, 2017
Answered

JavaScript editor for Mac using Parallels

  • February 15, 2017
  • 3 replies
  • 1103 views

I am most likely not the first to discover this, but nonetheless it was a very happy discovery.

I work on a Mac but run Windows too, under Parallels. With my routine it is simply best to work on my Acrobat forms on the Mac, with the exception of course when it comes to editing my scripts. Those familiar know that if you use an external Mac text editor with Acrobat, you must quit the text editor in order to return to and use your form.

I discovered that if I set the Acrobat JavaScript preferences on my Mac to use a Windows text editor (in my case, I am using notepad++), I lose that very annoying problem of having to quit the text editor to use my forms in editing mode. When I edit a script, whether the script is attached to a field, a Document JavaScript or All JavaScripts, notepad++ opens in Parallels, and when I close the script in notepad++,  leaving notepad++ open, I can then return to and continue working on my form. It appears to work as well as editing a form's script in Windows.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer JR Boulay

Hi.

Since using an external JavaScript/text editor always crash Acrobat Pro (since version 9 at least) on Mac OS, I became accustomed to copy-paste-copy-paste-copy-paste… between Acrobat and TextWrangler.

3 replies

JR Boulay
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 2, 2017

Breaking news: Text Wrangler is dead

==> http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
brettafreeman
Participant
March 2, 2017

I'm using Acrobat Pro DC on the Mac (Sierra) and use an external editor all the time.

The trick to make it a pleasant experience is to save and *quit* the editor EVERY time. If you leave the editor running, the next time you send a script over from Acrobat, it will  not always load a fresh version and things quickly get messy.

I've used Textmate and SublimeText without issue. I'm using Sublime right now because it reopens quicker than anything else I've found which is useful when I have to quit each time I'm done and return to Acrobat.

JR Boulay
Community Expert
JR BoulayCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
February 15, 2017

Hi.

Since using an external JavaScript/text editor always crash Acrobat Pro (since version 9 at least) on Mac OS, I became accustomed to copy-paste-copy-paste-copy-paste… between Acrobat and TextWrangler.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
ODuinnAuthor
Inspiring
February 25, 2017

Subsequent to posting my "discovery" about using a windows text editor with Acrobat on a Mac on which Parallels is installed, although this does seem to work for a time, it doesn't take long before it gets fouled up and crashes. Consequently, "copy-paste-copy-paste-copy-paste… between Acrobat and TextWrangler" remains the best alternative. One would think that Adobe would get around to fixing this annoying deficiency.

Karl Heinz  Kremer
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 27, 2017

You may want to report a bug here: Feature Request/Bug Report Form

What I do is copy&paste to and from TextMate. I do have TextMate configured as my JavaScript editor, but turned off, so when I am forced to use an external editor (JavaScript code is too large to fit into the built-in editor), I just bring up Acrobat's properties, go to the JavaScript category and turn my external editor on. Once I am done with that particular file, I turn it off again.