How do I work with livecycle forms in acrobat DC

Report · May 27, 2015

I have been making forms for clincal data collection for a couple of years, and have gradually figured out how to distribute forms and collect data. To do this, I have been using Acrobat 9 or 10 Pro and working with Live Cycle. Today, I upgraded to Acrobat Pro DC, and I learned that my Live Cycle program is gone. I read in another forum post that Livecycle and Acrobat pro have be "debundled". I tried to take my form and modify it in Acrobat Pro DC, and got an error message that says that I cannot modify the form in DC. So, I tried to figure out what the replacement program is.

So:

A: Can LiveCycle and Acrobat Pro DC co exist

B: Is Live Cycle still the right program for making and workign with these forms

C: Is there a way to take the previous forms I was working with in Live Cycle and convert them into forms that can be modified in Acrobat Pro DC?

Report · May 27, 2015

If the form is a dynamic XFA form with autoexpanding fields, tables, or new pages, you won't be able to convert to an AcroForm, which is Acrobat native form type.

If they are static XFA forms, then you can create a near functional duplicate in Acrobat. If you used FormCalc, you will have to reprogram in JavaScript, and any JavaScript will have to be reprogrammed to the mostly different Acrobat model. If you still have access to Acrobat 9, you can take advantage of a bug in it that will let you convert the XFA to an Acroform, but it will lose any programming and certain field properties. I'm not really recommending this, but it's an option if you're desperate.

It may be easier to just get the latest version of LiveCycle Designer.

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Report · May 14, 2024

Is there anything it can do?

Report · Jan 29, 2018

Or buy LiveCycle Designer. Or if you have a spare old machine and Acrobat X or 9, use them.