Create online PDF forms with database backend

Hello Jen,



By "LiveCycle" I assume you are actually referring to "LiveCycle Designer", the desktop application used for designing forms and form templates. The term "LiveCycle" is actually the brand name for Adobe's enterprise document product suite, which includes "LiveCycle Designer" as well as "LiveCycle Forms (Server)", "LiveCycle Policy Server", and many more....



There are several ways to accomplish what you are looking to do. The simplest way is to design your form so that it submits data in either XML or URL encoded format to a servlet (Java) or ASP page (.NET) page (or the equivalent in ColdFusion, PHP, perl, etc.) which can then take the data and insert/update/etc. it in the Access database via ODBC/JDBC/ADO/etc.



There are many more ways as well, including using Adobe's LiveCycle Forms Server (sorry Adobe - I'm not calling it just "Forms") product to dynamically generate the form from a template created using Designer. Forms Server can also pre-fill the form with information as well as perform advanced processing on the data submitted from the form before sending it to the database.



Hope this helps



Rob Gabbard

Cardinal Solutions Group

LiveCycle Integration Specialists

www.cardinalsolutions.com

Hello SGreen,



Thank you so much for your reply. Let me see if I can clarify what I am trying to accomplish.



What I mean by an online database is a database that can be accessed via the internet. This way, an employee from multiple locations can download it at any time.



I understand that LiveCycle is a product that helps you build PDF forms. However, in my specific scenario, I need the PDF form to be online so that people can fill it out and the data would go into a database.



As an example, let us say that I created a contact us form using LiveCycle. I want users to fill out this LiveCycle form so that after they click on the submit button, the data goes into a database.



The question is:



1. Is this possible using LiveCycle by itself?

2. Is this possible using LiveCycle and other programming tools? If so, can you please refer me to documentation.



Thanks again,

Jen

What exactly do you mean by an "online database"? It appears to me you are under the mistaken impression that LiveCycle Designer can do what you want with just a few magic waves of the wand inside the software. Searching this forum will (may) find you tips and information on how to do a few things, but there's no recipe posted here (or inside the Designer Help) that spells out how implement your solution.



Posting the form online and having the users submit their data (I'm assuming it will be in XML format) can be done a few different ways. As for the adding the ability "to export this database as CSV for reporting purposes", this has nothing to do with the LiveCycle product, so searching this forum for a solution probably won't help you.



If you would like some help from this forum, you will need to ask more specific questions.

Hi Aandi,



Thank you for your reply.



I am currently evaluating Adobe LiveCycle.



Jen

Do you own, or are you evaluating the product called "Adobe LiveCycle

Forms"? Or do you just have a general question about PDF forms?



Aandi Inston