With Reader Extensions, you can add one-dimensional and
two-dimensional barcodes to interactive PDF forms. You can then
publish the barcoded forms to a website or distribute them by email
or CD. When a user fills a barcoded form by using Adobe Reader or
Acrobat, the barcode is updated automatically to encode the user-supplied
form data. The user can submit the form electronically or print it
on paper and submit it by mail or fax. You can later extract the
user-supplied data as part of a LiveCycle process. This is accomplished
by routing the data to the appropriate business processes based
on the form type or the data itself.
Barcoded forms can eliminate the need for optical character recognition
(OCR)-based forms processing and the attendant costs of manual data
entry. Data captured from fill-and-print barcoded forms can be reinserted
into your electronic process quickly and automatically with 100%
accuracy. Furthermore, you can retain a digital image of the submitted
signed form for archiving purposes.
Key features
Reader Extensions 2D barcodes offer the following
key features:
Provides a unified approach for both
paper and digital forms processing
Automates the extraction and translation of barcoded data
into core IT processes
Supports barcodes encoded as XML, tab-delimited, or other
user-defined formats
The following illustration
and list below provides an example of how 2D barcodes work.
Your organization’s form author creates an interactive barcoded
PDF form using Designer or Acrobat Professional.
Using the Reader Extensions web application, a user applies
usage rights to the barcoded PDF form.
The user electronically publishes the barcoded form through
the web, email, or as a CD.
The end user opens the barcoded PDF form in Adobe Reader
or Acrobat and fills the form. As the user fills the form, the user’s
data is automatically encoded in the barcode.
a) For a paper submission, the user prints and signs the
form, and mails or faxes the form to your organization.
b)
For an electronic submission, the user clicks a submit button to
submit the form data electronically.
a) For a paper submission, when the completed form is received,
your organization scans the form into an electronic image. The Barcoded
Forms service locates the barcode on the scanned image, decodes
it, and extracts the data into your specified format.
b)
For an electronic submission through the Submit by Email button,
the data, other than the barcode data, is directly submitted to
the processing center as XML.
Note: The Barcoded
Forms service can decode a PDF file that was saved in Acrobat when
the file is directly submitted to the decoder in the same way a
scanned TIFF file is submitted.
Authoring barcoded forms
Form authors create the forms by using
Designer or Acrobat Professional. In the authoring phase, the form
author can specify any format to encode the data in the barcode,
such as XML or tab-delimited characters.
In Designer, form
authors create an interactive PDF form from scratch or by using a
form template. Form authors can drag images and other objects, such
as list boxes, text fields, command buttons, and barcodes onto the
form. They can then resize and position the images and objects to
suit your organization’s requirements.
Designer provides more
advanced features that let form authors use scripting objects, integrate
a form with a data source, and create forms with a flowable layout.
One advantage of authoring forms using Designer is that form authors
are working directly in the form’s source.
If the forms authored
in Acrobat Professional have many custom scripts attached to the
form objects, save time and effort by adding barcodes to the forms.
Creating a process
Developers can optionally create a process
by using Workbench to include business processes specific to Reader
Extensions. When integrated with other modules by using processes
designed in Workbench, a single unified forms process can easily
support different paper form submissions, each with their own specific
workflow. (See also Installing LiveCycle Workbench 11)
Adding barcoded forms usage rights for Adobe Reader
Your organization must add barcoded
forms usage rights to a PDF document before publishing the form
to your customers. These usage rights activate the barcode data
so that any commercial barcode decoder can read the barcode on the
PDF form. Without extending the PDF form’s usage rights with the
barcoded forms usage right, the barcode will be illegible to all
decoders, including those provided by Adobe.
In addition
to the barcoded forms usage rights, the following functionality
is enabled on the form:
Saving completed or partially
completed forms locally for offline filing and archiving
Adding comments to and routing forms through email for third-party
reviews
Applying digital signatures to authorize applications or
transactions
Submitting form data electronically
Adobe
Reader 8.0 and later does not require additional software or plug-ins
to work with PDF documents enabled by Reader Extensions.
These
special user capabilities are automatically activated when a rights-enabled PDF
document is opened within Adobe Reader. When the user finishes working with
a rights-enabled document, those functions are once again disabled
in Adobe Reader. They remain disabled until the user receives another
rights-enabled PDF document.
Usage rights are granted on a
per-form basis or a per-document basis and do not apply to any other
form or document. Adobe licenses the barcoded forms usage right
based on the number of consumers of the form.
Updating barcodes during form completion
When a user fills a barcoded form electronically
using Adobe Reader or Acrobat, the barcode is automatically updated
with the user-supplied information.
Note: If a
user fills a barcoded form using an earlier version of Acrobat or
Adobe Reader that does not support barcodes, a gray rectangle replaces
the barcode. A gray rectangle indicates that the barcode cannot
be updated. It also ensures that form processors do not process
barcoded forms inadvertently in situations where the barcode does
not accurately reflect the form’s user-supplied data.
Decoding barcodes to extract barcode data
The
process at your forms processing center can affect your ability
to successfully process and decode barcodes from barcoded forms.
Key steps in processing barcoded forms include preparing documents,
capturing data from barcodes, and routing captured data to enterprise
systems.
The process of capturing data from a barcode varies
depending on the type of device you use to process a barcoded form.
You can select from the following options:
The
Barcoded Forms service locates the barcode on the scanned image
(in TIFF or PDF), decodes it, and extracts the data in the specified
format. The extracted data can then be used by another module such
as Forms as part of a business process. For example, Forms can regenerate
the original form automatically with the data the user entered or
import the data into a blank form. This completes the digital-to-paper-to-digital
cycle (round-trip).
Processing captured barcode data
Using the process you created, LiveCycle
can automatically forward captured form data to the appropriate
enterprise processing application. Because you can specify the data
format in the authoring phase, moving form-based data across multiple
enterprise applications is effortless. You can also archive data
for visual presentation months or years later exactly as it was
entered into the original PDF form.
