ARTS PDF Variform Lite Version 1.3 ARTS PDF Variform Lite TABLE OF CONTENTS 1.0 INTRODUCTION................................................................................................... 3 1.1 Product Highlights ............................................................................................. 4 2.0 ARTS PDF VARIFORM LITE SETUP .................................................................. 5 2.1 System Requirements ....................................................................................... 5 2.1.1 2.1.2 Macintosh................................................................................................................... 5 Windows .................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 2.2.1 Installation ......................................................................................................... 5 Demo Mode ............................................................................................................... 5 3.0 USING ARTS PDF VARIFORM LITE ................................................................... 6 4.0 ACROBAT FORM FIELDS ................................................................................... 7 4.1 Appearance ....................................................................................................... 8 4.2 Options .............................................................................................................. 8 4.3 Actions............................................................................................................... 8 4.4 Format ............................................................................................................... 8 4.5 Validate ............................................................................................................. 9 4.6 Calculate ........................................................................................................... 9 5.0 PREFERENCES ................................................................................................. 10 5.1 Default Data File Folder .................................................................................. 10 5.2 Embed Custom Fonts...................................................................................... 10 5.3 Ignore Field Formats ....................................................................................... 10 6.0 SETUP ................................................................................................................ 11 6.1 Data File .......................................................................................................... 11 6.2 Delimiter .......................................................................................................... 12 6.3 Field Highlighting Options ............................................................................... 12 6.4 Custom Fonts .................................................................................................. 12 7.0 PRINT.................................................................................................................. 14 7.1 Print Records:.................................................................................................. 14 7.2 Page Range .................................................................................................... 14 7.3 Print to ............................................................................................................. 14 7.4 File Options ..................................................................................................... 15 8.0 EXPORT FIELD NAMES .................................................................................... 16 8.1 Export Options................................................................................................. 16 9.0 WATCHED FOLDERS........................................................................................ 17 9.1 Watched Folder Setup..................................................................................... 18 10.0 TROUBLESHOOTING........................................................................................ 19 Page 2 of 19 ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.3 Copyright © 2004 ARTS PDF ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.0 INTRODUCTION Welcome to personalized printing with Adobe ® Acrobat ® forms and ARTS PDF Variform LiteTM from ARTS PDFTM. ARTS PDF Variform Lite extends Acrobat forms and overcomes several restrictions that limit their usability. With Acrobat versions to date, the rendering of text fields has been limited to a small set of fonts (Courier, Times, Helvetica, Symbol, and Zapf Dingbats). This effectively eliminates the use of Acrobat forms for a number of popular appearance-critical applications, such as, mail merge, invitations, certificates, etc, or where organizationidentity fonts are required. But perhaps a greater restriction is that Acrobat forms were designed for web serverbased applications. So for anyone to consider an Acrobat forms application, this immediately brings to mind a significant "forms project" and trying to enlist the help of IT or MIS department. Such prospects are either beyond the reach of most individuals, difficult to implement given organizational constraints, beyond available budgets, or achievable in the next decade. ARTS PDF believes that there are literally millions of private databases. These exist in the form of word processing documents, spreadsheet files, PC databases, and even custom query results from large databases. These all share the common trait that they can be represented in a simple delimited text file on a personal computer. Adobe's Acrobat forms plug-in allows virtually any PDF document created from virtually any desktop application to be turned into a variable data form. But please remember that the term "form" is used in the general sense. It can include multi-line blocks of text. The definition is only restricted by our imaginations. Combining the freedom of independent Acrobat forms design and ARTS PDF Variform Lite's local access means that general usage of Acrobat forms can be extended to individuals, small or home offices, small businesses, self-employed professionals, branch offices, corporate departments, membership organizations, etc. Page 3 of 19 ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.3 Copyright © 2004 ARTS PDF ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.1 Product Highlights ARTS PDF Variform Lite provides a set of tools for managing and printing data from external files to PDF forms documents. With ARTS PDF Variform Lite, you can control the fonts used in printing forms, specify the range of records from a data file to be printed and extract form field names from an existing Acrobat form document to an external file. Data files can be created from any application or database which is capable of exporting records to a delimited file. ARTS PDF Variform Lite supports tab, comma, semicolon or space-delimited formats. Any Acrobat form document using form fields and appropriate security settings can be used as a merge document. Merged data can be printed to any PostScript printer or to a PostScript file. New, merged PDF documents can be created by ARTS PDF Variform Lite by printing directly to the Acrobat Distiller printer or by printing to a PostScript file and then using Acrobat Distiller. Subsequently, these merged PDF documents may be printed on any PCL or PostScript printer. Page 4 of 19 ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.3 Copyright © 2004 ARTS PDF ARTS PDF Variform Lite 2.0 ARTS PDF VARIFORM LITE SETUP 2.1 System Requirements 2.1.1 Macintosh · · · PowerMacintosh G3 or G4 System 9.2 or 10.2 or higher Adobe ® Acrobat ® 5.05 or higher 2.1.2 Windows · · · PC with Pentium processor Windows ® NT 4.0, Windows ® 2000 or Windows ® XP Adobe ® Acrobat ® 5.05 or higher CAUTION: Any folders or files which are created during installation are required by ARTS PDF Variform Lite. If you rename, move, or delete these folders the product will not work correctly. 2.2 Installation In addition to the User's Guide, the ARTS PDF Variform Lite folder contains other support files needed by ARTS PDF Variform Lite. The installation CD also has some sample PDF documents that demonstrate different data merge applications. The sample files are not installed to your hard disk. ARTS PDF Variform Lite will use and PostScript or TrueType fonts installed on the system for font selection. To validate the software's registration and/or to view the installation status, open Acrobat and view the "About Plug-Ins" box at the bottom of the Acrobat Help pulldown menu for "ARTS PDF Variform Lite...". The word "***Unregistered***" appears in the ARTS PDF Variform Lite "About" box when the version is not fully licensed. To validate your license, click on the "Register..." button, and then enter the serial number provided by ARTS PDF. To deactivate the plug-in, move it and the ARTS PDF Variform Lite folder out of the Acrobat Plug-Ins folder before launching Acrobat. 2.2.1 Demo Mode When ARTS PDF Variform Lite is in demo mode it will print DEMO on all output. Otherwise, the demo version of ARTS PDF Variform Lite is identical to the licensed version. ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.3 Copyright © 2004 ARTS PDF Page 5 of 19 ARTS PDF Variform Lite 3.0 USING ARTS PDF VARIFORM LITE To use the software, select "ARTS PDF Variform Lite" from the Acrobat "Tools" pulldown menu. Alternatively, you can launch ARTS PDF Variform Lite using the tool button on the Acrobat toolbar. ARTS PDF Variform Lite will then display its print dialog box. Note: ARTS PDF Variform Lite must temporarily modify a PDF document during the data merge/print operation. For this reason it cannot be used with PDF documents which have security settings applied. In order to use ARTS PDF Variform Lite it will be necessary to remove document security before attempting to merge a data file. Figure 1: The ARTS PDF Variform Plus menu Variform Lite Setup Export Field Names Variform Watched Folder Variform Print Figure 2: The ARTS PDF Variform Plus toolbar ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.3 Copyright © 2004 ARTS PDF Page 6 of 19 ARTS PDF Variform Lite 4.0 ACROBAT FORM FIELDS There are currently seven different types of form fields which can be created in Acrobat 4. These are described briefly below. Due to the nature of certain form field types, ARTS PDF Variform Lite will only merge data into Combo boxes or Text boxes. If other field types are used with ARTS PDF Variform Lite the resulting output for those fields will be blank. If there is a need to include items which would normally be indicated in a Check Box, the user should design the form using a Text box and put the appropriate character for "checked" in the data file. As an example, design the form to use the Zapf Dingbats font and put the numeral 3 or 4 in the data file for this field. This will cause a or to appear in the merged file. Consult the Acrobat documentation (Help -> Acrobat Guide) for more information on creating Acrobat forms. · · · · Buttons allow you to activate a series of actions. Check boxes allow your user to make multiple selections from a group of items. Combo boxes allow you to specify a list of items that appear in a pop-up menu. List boxes allow the user to create a list of items in a form field that displays all the time. Text boxes allow you to create a field into which you can enter text using the keyboard. Radio buttons allow your user to select one item from the displayed options. Digital signature fields allow you to create a form field that your user can then fill in with a signature and a printable representation. This field can be set to lock other fields after it is signed. Text boxes allow you to create a field into which you can enter text using the keyboard. · · · Page 7 of 19 ARTS PDF Variform Lite 1.3 Copyright © 2004 ARTS PDF ARTS PDF Variform Lite 4.1 Appearance When creating form fields, Acrobat allows the user to define a number of items affecting the field's appearance. These include such things as border color, width, and style, background color, text color, font and font size. ARTS PDF Variform Lite supports all of these choices and the output from ARTS PDF Variform Lite will include them. The user may also choose whether the form field is read only and/or required. Neither of these has any effect on ARTS PDF Variform Lite's ability to merge and print the data. Finally, the user has several choices about the form field's visibility. The only choice here which has any effect on ARTS PDF Variform Lite is "Visible but doesn't print". Although the data will be merged, for obvious reasons, it will not appear in the output from ARTS PDF Variform Lite. 4.2 Options Acrobat allows the user to enter a default value for a form field, set the text alignment, choose whether the field supports multi-line input, limit t ...