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R
razvanc66839094
Participant
November 16, 2018
Answered

Programmatic use of Adobe Reader to display and save updated content

  • November 16, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 3765 views

I am interested in automating a process that involves using Adobe Acrobat Reader to fill a form. This process involves the user doing the following steps:

  1. Retrieve the PDF file from the application
  2. Open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader
  3. Fill the available form fields (no automation required)
  4. Save the PDF file from Adobe Acrobat Reader
  5. Add the updated PDF file back to the application

I would like to automate this process from the application in the following way:

  1. Open Adobe Acrobat Reader
  2. Send the PDF content to Adobe Acrobat Reader
  3. Wait for the user to fill the form
  4. Retrieve the PDF content from Adobe Acrobat Reader

I am working with C# under Windows and I have the following questions:

  1. Do I need to install Adobe Acrobat (Standard or Pro) on my development machine to create applications that integrate with Adobe Acrobat Reader?
  2. If answer to question 1 is no, what is the API that I need to reference in my project? So far, I know about the following COM references: "Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Browser Control ...", "Adobe Reader File Preview ...", "AFormAut ...". The "Acrobat" reference from "FillFormCS" SDK sample does not resolve on my machine.
  3. Is it possible to have a version independent implementation, as long as Adobe Acrobat Reader supports the file?
  4. If answer to question 3 is no, how can I implement for Adobe Acrobat Reader DC?

Thank you for taking your time to read.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer lrosenth

You can certainly write a plugin (in C/C++) for Adobe Reader that will give you much more control and information. However, that will require that you purchase Adobe Acrobat Pro for doing the development, as well as obtaining a Reader Integration Key from Adobe.

4 replies

H
HallieBeary
Participant
July 11, 2021

Do we have to take and pass a test to get an ID?  I am about to drink a bottle of wine which will render me useless....so come on now and quit teasing!

H
HallieBeary
Participant
July 11, 2021

The suspicion is killing me!!

H
HallieBeary
Participant
July 11, 2021

Excited to Create My ID Button!

T
Test Screen Name
Legend
July 11, 2021

HallieBeary, I do not understanad your questions at all. What Create My ID button? Why are you excited? 

lrosenth
Adobe Employee
lrosenth
Adobe Employee
November 16, 2018

1 – for this particular use, no you do not.

2 – You can’t use COM to communicate with Reader, it has no COM APIs. The APIs are quite limited from C# with Reader. For your needs, however, the only thing you need to do with Reader is a ShellExec() on the PDF to have it open. I would use file system watchers to detect change.

3 – Yes, given how little you are doing.

    R
    razvanc66839094Author
    Participant
    November 16, 2018

    Thank you for answering all of my questions. The information is very helpful.

    The difficult parts in your approach are knowing when the user is done (save multiple times) and getting the result (save elsewhere or with a different name). Regarding the "is done" part, I thought about handling the Reader process exit. This does not work if the user has multiple documents opened and just closes one tab.

    In case any of these two parts can be improved by using other languages, such as C/C++ (better API), please let me know. I was thinking about opening the document in a separate instance without tabs or controlling the save process from within the application (overwrite the file or retrieve the new file path).

    lrosenth
    Adobe Employee
    lrosenthCorrect answer
    Adobe Employee
    November 16, 2018

    You can certainly write a plugin (in C/C++) for Adobe Reader that will give you much more control and information. However, that will require that you purchase Adobe Acrobat Pro for doing the development, as well as obtaining a Reader Integration Key from Adobe.

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