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Populating PDF Form from database

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7 replies

by edwardhammerbeck

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I saw in a recent class how to populate a Adobe Acrobat 5 PDF Form with data from a MS Access database, and I cannot remember how it is done. Can anyone help? I am using Acrobat 5 and MS Access 97.

7 replies

by kirill lozovatsky

1. Ensure Adobe Acrobat is installed on your system.
Note: You need the FULL version of Acrobat which is a commercial product, not the free reader.
2. Open Access.
3. Open the database of interest.
4. Open the form, report, table or query that you wish to turn into a .PDF file.
5. Select Print from the File menu.
6. Change your printer name to "Acrobat PDFwriter" using the drop-down menu.
7. Click OK.
8. When the "Save PDF File As" dialog box opens, enter a file name for your Acrobat file.
9. Click Save.
10. Open the file using Acrobat Reader and ensure that the process completed successfully

Hope it'll help you.

by edwardhammerbeck

Thank you for your response, but this is not exactly what I meant. In my class we made a PDF form function exactly like a 'form' in Access or with VB. The fields in the PDF were dynamically bound to fields in the database. When the record navigation buttons on the PDF were pushed, you saw the records cycle. You could update records in the form and view the changes. It was exactly as if the PDF was the GUI for a database application.

by sergey kovzik

it might have been done via CGI on web-server.

www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/27f9a.htm
herman.itlab.musc.edu/playground/demo.html
herman.itlab.musc.edu/playground/html_pdf_demo.html

there is such thing as ODBC plug-in for acrobat. it's likeit allows direct access to database. you can search on www.adobe.com for this information. they have GoLive product and Exchange to support such things.

by edwardhammerbeck

I discovered that there is a Javascript object called, guess what, Adobe Database Connectivity (ADBC). It works similarly to Microsoft's ActiveX Data Object, for instance. It encapsulates the database connectivity and interactivity functions in aneasy to use interface. It rocks.

by estebandelatorre

You neeed first and OBDC configured properly and an access plig in for Adobe.
Checkit at www.acrobat.com
Obdc is the ms-acess one
Once in PDF, you can ODBC ms-aceess and retrieve records from access database

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