Acrobat is not suitable for such a job, as it has been stated. One of the first addresses to look for industrial-strength solutions would be PDF-Tools AG. They have a good range of such products, and they can also customize for your specific needs (in other words, they know what they are doing). You might also look at the members of PDFA.org . Hope this can help. ... View more

It depends on what exactly you want to accomplish, but there are various approaches. Probably the most common one would be using OCGs (Optional Content Groups, sometimes also called "layers"). You would import the document page by page, and turn them into a (named) OCG. Then you can show/hide them, either script-controlled or manually. A similar approach would be creating button fields of the size of a page, import the page as the icon, and then show/hide those fields Finally, you may also look at the Template functionality (which has some limitations with Reader). In any case, don't fiddle around with pseudo-images, if you can use PDF (which you can do in the methods mentioned above). Hope this can help. ... View more

Just commenting on the last paragraph: Definitely NOT in individual fields (because of the way the field event processing sequence in Acrobat works). Therefore, if the recalculation should happen regularly (meaning with every change of some field contents in the document), the script would be in the Calculate event of a hidden, readonly field, otherwise not involved in the whole calculation. If the recalculation should happen only at specific events (pageOpen, documentOpen, etc.), it should be attached to that event. Document-level function or in field? Definitely define a document-level function, which can be called from the field. As it has been mentioned, the Document-level function is interpreted once, and then available for whenever it is called, it will be faster than if it had to be interpreted every time the script gets called. Additional ways to speed up: • instead of doing the calculations in many field rows, manage the data in a 2-dimensional array, and only when the calculations are done, refresh the fields from the array. Note that arrays can not be stored in the file but only strings (or streams), which means that you will have to concatenate the arrays into strings when you are saving (at latest), and recreate them when opening the file. • while field values are processed, and especially if fields are shown or hidden based on that processing, suppress the refresh by embracing the part of the script with this.delay = true and this.delay = false. • to suppress excessive useless recalculations, suppress them by embracing the part of the script with this.calculate = false and this.calculate = true, followed by this.calculateNow to force the recalculation. Hope this can help. ... View more

The simplest way to create a unique number would be the date at the time the file is saved. The JavaScript Date object has the getTime() function, which displays the number of milliseconds since a reference date (which, I think, is January 1st, 1990, midnight). Of that number, one could, for example, just take the last 10 or so digits, to keep the number readable. When you apply the stamp, you will therefore need a little script: var myID = new Date().getTime() ; (as a base), and then use the variable as value for the stamp. It would also be possible to create a field for that information, and (if there are no other Annotations (fields, comments, links, etc.) in the document, flatten them after filling). Or, the Watermark function would work as well. The trigger event would be willSave. ... View more

It essentially means that a field named "IsModified" does not exist. Carefully check spelling. Maybe locate the field, open its properties dialog, and copy the field name from there, and paste it into the code. Hope this can help. ... View more

Well, if (app.activeDocument.mode = DocumentMode.RGB) will always return true, no matter what activeDocument mode is. Because JavaScript is forgiving, it will not balk at the attempt to set the activeDocument.mode (as the mode property is actually read-only).  And we can assume that in the current case, the mode of the active document will be RGB for most of the time. ... View more

I was actually referring to the typo mentioned "for the records". The "schnippisch" tone may not be appropriate, and I may actually delete the message soon. ... View more

Knowing that it is a rhetoric question, but wasn't that when Adobe moved the development of Acrobat to another continent, breaking all the understood concepts and sense of responsibility from the Best Acrobat Ever (Acrobat 5). The result was the Worst Acrobat Ever (Acrobat 6), and starting the "even version number curse" for Acrobat (even version numbered Acrobats sucked more or less big time). And, of course, despite many requests, Adobe still has not been able (or willing; probably both) to provide the getAction() JavaScript method… (so much for my Saturday Morning Rant…) ... View more

And this script actually works as shown here in the forum? For the records: if (app.activeDocument.mode = DocumentMode.RGB) { should read if (app.activeDocument.mode == DocumentMode.RGB) { ... View more

OK, even number of pixels can be set when scaling. It might be a good idea, if the OP could (if he is allowed to) give a bit more insight into those "very specific standards"… ... View more

The question is, what is in the saveforweb method which could not be done with a script just using the "regular" save as JPEG method. As the components for such a script are fully documented, it should not really be such a big deal to create it. Opinions? ... View more

OK, so, let's first dig up some math skills: What happens when you divide a value by zero? Yep, the result is + or - Infinity (not beyond here…). What happens when you divide zero by zero? Yep, the result is undefined. With that, we have the cause of the problem; division by zero. What to do when we program such a formula? That means working a bit on Acrobat Forms and JavaScript skills… Let's assume that your table is set up so that the name of each field in a row ends with the row number. Let's also assume that you have 8 rows in the table. Finally, let's assume that the Percentage field is formatted as Percentage. It is considered Best Practice to consolidate all scripts into one single script, and to add it to the Calculate event of a hidden, readonly field, which is otherwise not involved in any way with the rest of the form. The segment of the script which does the percentage calculation may then look like this: for (var i = 1 ; i <= 8 ; i++) { if (this.getField("CumulativeAmount" + i).value != this.getField("CumulativeAmount" + i).defaultValue && this.getField("Budget" +i).value != this.getField("Budget" + i).defaultValue) { this.getField("Percentage" + i).value = this.getField("CumulativeAmount" + i).value*1 / this.getField("Budget" + i).value*1 ; } } And that should do it (note that the script has 5 lines in total; one or two lines may break). Hope this can help. ... View more

Just as a test to see whether there may be an issue with the form itself… how does it print from Preview.app? Otherwise, it would be helpful to know about the form itself (if you can disclose it). ... View more

We can call it "a feature". As George_Johnson states, the field's appearances are not updated when you scale the field. When you do that programmatically, the procedure would be to first read the field value to a variable, scale the field, and then re-set its value from the variable. That does refresh the appearances. BTW, resetting the form does also refresh the appearances. Hope this can help. ... View more

You might have to provide a bit more information, particularly about the concerned form, but also about versions of your operating system and platform. (and don't be offended…) does the printer have full ink tanks? ... View more

In addition to George_Johnson's answer, the closest would be looping through the fields, reading out their properties, deleting them, recreating the fields in the "correct"order while reapplying the properties. ... View more

I take it back… As I am working with the saveAsxxx saveOptions, I work with other numbers than in the export for web function. Looks like a serious inconsistency to me… BTW, I may delete my entry in a few hours, because of irrelevance. ... View more

You might carefully compare some of the save options with the Photoshop JavaScript documentation. At least, the quality properties are out of scope. ... View more

OK, as single quotes are also legal, try putting the format string between single quotes; in that case, there should be no need for backslashes. ... View more

I love the Walmart analogy… IMHO, it is even worse, because they rearrange the store while you are in there and search… Anyway, if your users are kind of controllable, you might look at the GIMP (open source image processing software) for the convesion, and give your users good instructions, or see how far you could actually script the software. I fully agree with you that Adobe should open up the format converters in Reader. ... View more

You might have a look at how HTML links open a new window. Then add that syntax to your hypelinks in the PDF. However, it may be possible that you encounter strange behavior when trying to open the links from outside of a browser. ... View more

OK, that explains the RegExp… you still could use something like if (fname.toLowerCase().indexOf("date") >= 0) It would be a long shot but try the direct syntax (not using the cTrigger / cScript) You might also see whether it really inserts code by using something like app.beep() as script. I may be wrong, but it is possible that if both, the Keystroke and the Format scripts are set, the date format dialog may appear instead of the custom script dialog. ... View more

As long as you make sure that always the last spawned page gets deleted, you should be fine. Otherwise, as stated earlier, save all spawned (and non-spawned if necessary) pages' field values, delete all spawning pages, respawn and refill. ... View more

Unless you can precisely control these pre-cooked functions, don't use them (they are undocumented; until about Acrobat 5, the according script was available in the clear; later on, they replaced it with a precompiled library, with the goal to speed up the application loading time). It is very likely that the argument of AFDate_Format() and AFDate_Keystroke() are incorrect. Also, I wonder why you are using the RegEx matching for the field name match; wouldn't if (fname == "date") be easier to deal with? ... View more

You can not directly change the field format using JavaScript. But you can add a format script using the setAction() method. This method allows to add a JavaScript to a list of events of the Field processing event sequence. What you'd have to know, however, is where the Date Object comes from (be it a variable, or be it just "now"). The example below assumes that the current date should be used. In order to set the format of the date, we use the util.printd() method. Example; you would run this code from the Console while the document is open. this.getField("date").setAction("Format", "event.value = util.printd(\"mm/dd/yyyy\", new Date() ) ;") ; And that should get you on the way. Hope this can help. ... View more

To get the radio button behavior with checkboxes, give the checkboxes the same field name, but a different return value. ... View more

That could be done with a little bit of (Acrobat) JavaScript: Let's assume that the field for month and date is named dat.month, and the field for the year dat.year. You somehow provide the date to be used, and pass it as a Date Object "theDay" In the general calculation script, you would then add the following two lines of code: this.getField("dat.month").value = util.printd("mmmm d", theDay) ; this.getField("dat.year").value = util.printd("yyyy", theDay) ; And that would do it. As said, you would have to create the proper date object. Hope this can help. ... View more