By default, the “Send by Email” button in the LiveCycle designer menu submits interactive PDF form data as an XML attachment. The recipient must then import the XML data into a local copy of the PDF file using Adobe Acrobat Professional.

For many users this is fine, but I needed a way to email the data within a PDF attachment. The clear benefit of this is that users without Acrobat Professional can read the data simply by downloading the free Adobe Reader.

There is a surprisingly simple way to achieve this, in two stages:

Stage 1: Enable usage rights in Adobe Reader

1. Open your form in Adobe LiveCycle Designer
2. Choose Advanced > Enable usage rights in Adobe Reader

Stage 2: Create the email button

1. Drag a “Send by email” button into your file
2. With the button selected, chose View > XML Source
3. Find the following code:
   
   <event activity="click">
   <submit format="xml" target="mailto:example@example.com?subject=Example" textencoding="UTF-8"></submit>
   </event>

4. Change the format attribute on the submit tag from “xml” to “pdf”, and save your changes.

I’ve recently been working on interactive PDFs in Adobe Livecycle designer. I’ve realised that it is possible to create interactive PDFs which can be saved in Adobe Reader 8, and create a save form button to encourage users to do this.

For normal users, there are three stages. Advanced users can skip straight to the code.

Stage 1: Create a PDF which can be saved in Adobe Reader 8

1. Open the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Professional
2. Choose Advanced > Enable Usage Rights in Adobe Reader
3. Save the file somewhere, as directed

Stage 2: Download and install the save form button XFO

1. Download the “Save a Copy” file from http://www.livecycletraining.com/ (direct link to zip file)
2. Save the XFO file somewhere safe
3. Open your form in Adobe LiveCycle Designer
4. Click on the menu icon in the Library pallet
5. Choose Add Group & enter a name
6. Now click the menu icon on your newly created group, and in the Group properties options box, locate the XFO file

Stage 3: Create a Save Form button

1. Simply drag the save form button which appears in your newly created group.

Save form button instructions for Advanced Users

Add the following javascript code to a button in the XML source view on your interactive PDF.

<event activity="click">
<script contentType="application/x-javascript">app.execMenuItem("SaveAs");</script>
</event>