Preview and test printing forms

Testing your form and its data bindings in Designer avoids the need to deploy the forms to the server and generate a printed test output.

As you work in Designer, you can preview the form in the Preview PDF tab. (You must have Adobe® Acrobat® Professional, Acrobat Standard or Adobe® Reader® installed to use the Preview tab.) Use the Preview PDF tab to view and test the operation of the form as if it were a PDF file. To set options for previewing interactive forms or printable forms in PDF, use the Form Properties dialog box (Preview tab).

By previewing the form with sample data, you can determine whether the layout, formatting, content, and behavior of a form responds as expected. You can preview the form with data from an existing XML data file. You can also generate sample data by clicking the Generate Preview Data button on the Preview tab in the Form Properties dialog box.

Also, you can print the form design with sample data to a network printer by selecting Print Form With Data in the Print dialog box. When you print the form, the data values from the sample XML file appear in the respective objects. If you are setting up the form for double-sided printing, you can use sample data to test printing. You can also review how the rendered form looks when the printed page ends on an odd page or an even page. You can also review how it looks when it fits on one printed page. For double-sided printing, use the Two-Sided Print option in the Print dialog box.

For more information, see Designer Help.

For example, the following XML data shows an example of a data file that contains three data records.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<batch> 
<LoanRecord> 
    <mortgageAmount>500000</mortgageAmount> 
    <lastName>Blue</lastName> 
    <firstName>Tony</firstName> 
    <SSN>555666777</SSN> 
    <Description>Buy a home</Description> 
</LoanRecord> 
<LoanRecord> 
    <mortgageAmount>300000</mortgageAmount> 
    <lastName>White</lastName> 
    <firstName>Sam</firstName> 
    <SSN>555666222</SSN> 
    <Description>Buy a home</Description> 
</LoanRecord> 
<LoanRecord> 
    <mortgageAmount>700000</mortgageAmount> 
    <lastName>Green</lastName> 
    <firstName>Steve</firstName> 
    <SSN>55566688</SSN> 
    <Description>Buy a home</Description> 
</LoanRecord> 
</batch>

To test printing a form with data in Output, the XML data must contain only one data record.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> 
<LoanRecord> 
    <mortgageAmount>500000</mortgageAmount> 
    <lastName>Blue</lastName> 
    <firstName>Tony</firstName> 
    <SSN>555666777</SSN> 
    <Description>Buy a home</Description> 
</LoanRecord>

For information about creating sample data files in Designer, see the topics “To create sample data to print with your form” and “To automatically generate sample data to print with your form” in Designer Help.

• Specify the device configuration file
• About Output-IVS

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