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Dianella655
Participant
January 14, 2018
Question

Forms export to Excel

  • January 14, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 3882 views

I have created an interactive order form with a list of products and quantity fields to be filled in by customers. I have a submit button which I have set up to email the company the filled form as a PDF but my client wants the data extracted and emailed as an Excel spreadsheet. Is there a way to do this? I'm using Acrobat Pro DC on a Mac.

Thank you

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4 replies

marck43125596
marck43125596
Participant
January 15, 2018

It's Much Easier with DC than everyone is saying here.

If you haven't sent it yet, get everyones emails and create a response file from the distribute function (prepare form). This will allow you to see all responses and automatically put the responses in a portfolio.

If you have all the hard copies, you need to put them into a response portfolio through merge extract "Merge Data to Spreadsheet" (prepare form menu on right).

Then send to excel.

Hope that helps

Thom Parker
Community Expert
Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
Community Expert
January 16, 2018

I like the solution by NKOWA555 .  XML is very easy to handle for the manual solution.  It's simple, direct, and can be expanded on later with some automation and workflow variations. Although I haven't tried it yet, I suspect  Excel might require you to walk through an import wizard to get the data where you want it. But even with this it's a good scheme.

I do not like the built-in Acrobat Distribution functionality. This has been around since Acrobat X. Its a very simple single source workflow with few options. It works great if that workflow is what you want. One of the problems is that it only works on the computer on which it is created. Someone can't set it up for you.  There are other issues, for example its not modifiable or expandable into other methodologies. 

Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
NKOWA555
NKOWA555
Inspiring
January 15, 2018

Send attachment as XML format, and open XML file with MS EXCEL

//Place this script in the buttons mouseUp JavaScript event  
//http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/devnet/acrobat/pdfs/js_api_reference.pdf#page=345  
//SUBMIT XML FORMAT WITH ADOBE READER  
var url = "mailto:you@domain.com?subject=XML Format&body=See attachment: XML Format\nOpen XML in MS Excel&cc=&bcc=";  
var submitAs = "XML";//PDF,FDF,XFDF,XDP,XML  
this.submitForm({cURL:url,cSubmitAs:submitAs}); 
    Thom Parker
    Community Expert
    Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 15, 2018

    So your client wants the customers to email their responses as an excel spreadsheet?  This would only be possible under two circumstances.

    1. You can install an app in the customer systems.

    2. The data is submitted to a web script that then emails the data in the correct format.

    Or as try mentions, you could provide a complicated set of instructions to the user as to how they can submit the data.

    Or do you mean the client wants to extract all the form data into Excel?

    Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
    D
    Dianella655Author
    Participant
    January 15, 2018

    To clarify - the client wants the customer to fill out the PDF form and hit the submit button.

    Ideally, the form that the client receives would be in the form of an excel spreadsheet so they can incorporate it into their database and fill the order, without having to manually copy details from the PDF which is what they do now.

    I thought there might be a simple way to extrapolate the data as pure data rather than being part of the PDF.

    Thom Parker
    Community Expert
    Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    January 15, 2018

    There is a way to export data from the PDF. There is an "Export Data" feature your client can use to export the data to a data file format that can be imported into Excel. A script could also be written for this so your client could just push a button on the Acrobat toolbar to export the data. Or a tool could be written in Excel to import the data at a press of a button. And there are 3rd party tools for this sort of thing. Unfortunately they tend to get mixed up in google searches with tools that convert PDF to Excel.

    Here's an article that explains some of the issue with moving data back and forth between PDF and Excel.

    https://www.pdfscripting.com/public/ExcelAndAcrobat.cfm

    Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
    try67
    Community Expert
    try67Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 14, 2018

    No, it's not possible to do it automatically. They can do it on their end, though. Shouldn't be too hard to export the form data to a format that can be opened in Excel, assuming they have Acrobat.

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