Importing Data into a fillable PDF form Access

Hi huntdj0,

>I have a fillable PDF
Define 'fillable PDF'.  Last I remember, the ability to write and data into a PDF documente required some kind of Adobe server product, which had a license fee of $50,000.

>figuring out how to control an acrobat 6.0 document from access vba.
Adobe has a 'Adobe JavaScript Scripting Reference' manual, 682 pages long.  
There's also the 'Acrobat Interapplication Communication Reference' manual, a quick read of 400 pages.

Do a search on the Adobe site for AcroJS.pdf and IACReference.pdf, and I'm sure you'll find it.

Good luck, as coding in Access VBA (or anything VB) to PDF is not easy.

-Jim


Cheers!

Agree with jim, manipulating PDFs in this manner from with Access can be tough. Here's a pretty good start:

http://www.planetpdf.com/

There are likely some 3rd party controls which will allow you to do this, but be very concerned IF you need to deploy this - often they are quite specific as to what must be installed on the workstation/server in order to function correctly.

Thanks for your comments.

I have been poking around some more and found that an acrobat object in access has a menuItemExecute member. I am trying to figure out how to run the import forms data menu with this command.

Any hints there?

Devin

Not really ... have you tried the Adobe forum? You can put a 20 point "pointer" question in that forum to this question, or have CS move this question to that forum.

My question was not answered by any of the above comments.

Actually, it was, it's just that the answer is not user-friendly enough for a typical Access developer to easily incorporate into their apps, and costs less than $50k.   I'm guessing that a couple of years from now, a version of Adobe Acrobat Professional will be out that is.

I have no objections to a Delete-Refund here.

I actually found a way to fill the form. It's a bit of a round about way but it worked for my purpose. I wanted to fill out the FDA MedWatch report form. What I did was open an instance of notepad from access and basically wrote in text to code the pdf variables and their values. I got the names of the variables by exporting data from the pdf form. What you get when you export the data is an .fdf file that references the original .pdf version. When you open the .fdf file, it opens the .pdf and fills in the data specified in the .fdf file. So i was able to open the .fdf document from access, which opens the .pdf and fills in the data.

Like I said, I sort of round about way, but it worked and was a lot less expensive then $50k.

Since the author posted a solution, Ill change the recommendation to:

PAQ/Refund

(If there are no objections :-)