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Designer
provides a number of ways that you can optimize and improve the performance
of your forms when using Forms. Using these improvements, you can
configure time-saving features such as faster form rendering times, rendering
forms on the client to reduce burden on the server, and prepopulating forms
with known data to reduce burden on form fillers.
Form caching
Form caching is an effective way to increase the performance
of form rendering. When a form is cached, the data is merged into
a pregenerated presentation. Using Forms, you can cache forms to
improve rendering performance.
Forms that have a layout that adjusts to accommodate data can
always be cached. Forms that have a fixed layout may also be cached
but the following restrictions apply:
If you have floating fields in forms that have a fixed
layout and you select the Allow Form Rendering To Be Cached On Server
option, the data in the fields will not render in the output PDF.
To render the data in floating fields, ensure that this option is
not selected.
If the form can be filled by using Acrobat or Adobe Reader
6.0.2, only forms that have a fixed layout are eligible for caching.
Form caching with forms that have a flowable layout is only supported
by Acrobat and Adobe Reader 7.0.5 and later.
All server-side scripting against the form layout is ignored.
For example, you cannot script against such things as the fill color,
font color, border width, or border color.
Server-side scripting that changes the page content, the
number of fields, the position of fields, or the appearance is ignored.
When using the PDF or PDFForm transformations, you cannot
change the layout of the form using client-side scripting. However,
using the HTML transformations, client-side scripting to change
the appearance of the form at the client is still possible, even
when form caching is enabled.
Usage rights are applied to the form before caching to further
improve form rendering performance.
Caching requires that each form be uniquely identified. If
you want to create a new form by using an existing form as the starting
point, do not use the operating system Copy command to copy the
form. Instead, you should use the Designer File > Save As command
to create the new form that is uniquely identified for caching.
If you open an existing form in Designer and save the changes,
the cache will be automatically updated.
For Forms to cache
forms that have a fixed layout, you must select the form caching
option in Designer for each form that you create.
To specify form caching for a form that has a fixed layout
Select File > Form Properties.
Click the Defaults tab and select Allow Form Rendering To
Be Cached On Server.
Click OK.
Rendering a form design that has a flowable layout on the clientIf your form fillers are using Acrobat
7.0.5 or later, or Adobe Reader 7.0.5 or later, you can choose to
have your forms render on the client instead of the server.
Rendering interactive or non-interactive forms that have a flowable
layout, whether through Acrobat or Adobe Reader on the client side,
achieves better performance than rendering on the server. This is
because the Acrobat and Adobe Reader client applications, not the
server, perform the rendering operation. Even forms that have a
flowable layout and that involve data merging can be rendered on
the client.
In addition, through client-side rendering, you optimize the
delivery of PDF content and improve the ability of Forms to handle
network load.
To render a form at the client, Forms must be set to render forms
at the client and also generate a shell PDF.
The shell PDF file is a container that lets you deliver an XDP
file (as part of the data stream) to the Acrobat or Adobe Reader
client. It acts as the shell from which a dynamically rendered PDF
is displayed and may contain embedded fonts that the XDP file requires.
With the shell PDF file, Acrobat and Adobe Reader are able to open
the XDP file and render the PDF on the client.
Prepopulating form fields with dataAll form types can be prepopulated with data
by using Forms. The data can come from a variety of sources, such
as a database, another form, or another application.
Prepopulating a form has several advantages:
Enables the user to view custom data in a form
Reduces the amount of typing the user does to fill a form
Ensures data integrity by having control over where data
is placed
Prepopulating forms is faster and more secure when the prepopulation
occurs during form rendering on the server instead of on the client.
Verifying your XML data source for data mergingWhen prepopulating
forms with data, it is important to ensure that either the structure
of the data conforms to the structure of your form design or that
your form design conforms to the structure of your data.
In
other words, an XML element must exist within your data source for
every form field you want to prepopulate. Any discrepancies between
the structures of your form and data source can lead to incorrect
output. The XML element name must match a form field name, and XML
elements that do not correspond to form fields are ignored.
The
following two types of data sources can prepopulate a Designer form:
An XML data source
is used to prepopulate forms. However, an XML data source that prepopulates
a form that has a flexible layout contains repeating XML elements
that are used to prepopulate subforms that are repeated within the form
itself.
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