Preparing a form for use in Workspace

A form design intended for use in Workspace must be properly configured to display in Workspace. Depending on your application and the desired output, the form design should contain one or more of the following objects:

  • Submit button (available in the Object palette). If clients are using Adobe Reader 9.1 or greater, adding a submit button to the form design is not required.

  • Process Fields object (available in the Custom category of the Object Library palette)

  • Form Bridge object (available in the Custom category of the Object Library palette). The Form Bridge object enables communication to PDF forms outside of Acrobat.

    The New Form wizard automatically adds a Submit button and the Process Fields Form Bridge objects to the form design based on the selections you make in the wizard. The New Form wizard also sets the proper submit format of the Submit button based on the settings in the wizard.

    By default, Workspace contains a Complete button for PDF forms and guides. Typically, having a submit button and a complete button on a single form is not desirable. To understand how Workspace handles the Complete and Submit buttons in PDF forms, see How Workspace handles buttons in PDF forms.

    The Process Fields object contains a button object, a drop-down list, and a number of additional hidden objects. For more information about the Process Fields object, see Fields in the Process Fields object.

    The following table describes some common scenarios related to rendering forms in Workspace and the object(s) that are required on the form design.

    Note: If clients are using Adobe Reader 9.1 or later, a Submit button is not required on the form design.
    Note: Guides is deprecated.
    Note: When adding a Submit button in forms requiring digital signature, use XDP in Submit As field, for Save as Draft to work. If you submit the forms as PDF, then Save as Draft does not work. You can create a workflow containing multiple digital signatures from multiple approvers, but cannot use the Save as Draft feature in this workflow.

    Task

    What to use on the form design

    Render an XDP form design in Workspace for online PDF output.

    Submit button.

    Render a PDF form design in Workspace for online PDF output.

    Submit button.

    Render a guide in Workspace. The form design can be a PDF or an XDP.

    Submit button.

    Note: This applies to guides created in Designer 8.x. To create a guide in Designer 9.x and later, use Guide Builder available in Workbench.

    Enable users to send forms by email.

    Process Fields object

    Render an XDP form design in offline capable PDF format. This enables Workspace users to take PDF forms offline.

    Process Fields object

    Note: You cannot render a guide in offline capable PDF format.

    Render an XDP form design in Workspace in HTML format.

    Process Fields object

    Note: In HTML forms, the Complete button in Workspace is not displayed. The location of the Process Fields object in the form design is where the buttons in the HTML form appear.

    Certify, encrypt, or apply usage rights to a PDF or XDP form design before its first delivery to a user by Forms or Workspace.

    Submit button and Form Bridge object.

    Save the form as a PDF form in Designer and certify, encrypt, or apply usage rights before saving it in the repository.

    Submit button and Form Bridge object.

    Enable the signing of PDF forms in Workspace.

    Submit button.

Using the Form Bridge object with form designs that contain Artwork

When you add the Form Bridge object to a form design that contains Artwork, you will not see the object in the Design View.

To submit form designs that contain Artwork to Workspace:

  1. Open the PDF form that contains Artwork.

  2. Select the root node.

  3. Add a script object to it and name the object ContainerFoundation_JS.

  4. Open a blank form and add the Form Bridge object to it.

  5. Select the ContainerFoundation_JS object.

  6. In the Script Editor, select the form ready event and the JavaScript language.

  7. Copy the script into the ContainerFoundation_JS object of the PDF form you opened in step 1.

  8. In the blank form, select the root node.

  9. In the Script Editor, select the form ready event and the JavaScript language.

  10. Copy the script into the root node of the PDF form you opened in step 1.

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