How can I make hundreds of pdf documents fillable ?

[HPWGVA]

Hello Adobe Community !

I have used a macro to generate hundreds of pdf from a doc x and a fusion database (excel). The problem is that I have to open all the file and use the tool "prepare form" to make it fillable and save it again. Is there a way to do this without having to open all the files ?

Thank you for your help !

[try67]

Should all the files have the same fields, in the same locations, or is each one different?

[HPWGVA]

Thank you for your prompt answer Try67.

Yes it's all the same field in the same location.

But I just found a way to do it with the Wizard Action !

Not sure if it's best way to do it but it does the job. Were you gonna suggest me to do that ?

Thanks

[try67]

Yes, I was, but instead of using the unpredictable Prepare Form command I was going to suggest to use a script to do it, but if it works for you, that's great!

[HPWGVA]

It's working well yes, the only thing is that I have to confirm the "detection of fillable fields" for each file. Do you know if there is a way to bypass this confirmation ?

[Thom Parker]

The field detection can't be changed.  So no, the confirmation can't be bypassed.

[try67]

As Thom said, no, you can't do that. I would strongly recommend adding the fields using a script, if possible.

[Thom Parker]

Is there a way to get the page locations of the form fields from the spread sheet? If so then writing a script to automatically place the fields is not a difficult task.  Even if the location isn't avaiable in the spreadsheet, an Action script would be a much better option than the "Detect Form Fields" options. For example, since you've said they are all in the same location, you could manually place fields on one form, then write an Action script to copy the fields to all the other documents.   

[Thom Parker]

Or another way to write the script, would be to perform a Replace pages on the PDF containing the fields with one of the other PDFs, and then save it to the name of the other PDF.   This essentially places the fields on the other form.  You'd need to work out a file naming scheme to make this a smooth process.