[pdftex] FORMS of hyperref only work with Acrobat Professional ??

[Ross Moore]

Hello TW,

On Sat, 17 Jan 2004, TW Ma wrote:

>
> I have done         testform.tex---->testform.pdf
> with pdflatex by miktex on window-2000.
>
> When I click the text-field, I got an error message: Adobe Reader does not
> save the data (see the end of this email). I tried to contact
> Acrobat-Professional for advice but could not find the email address from
> their site. Be very grateful if somebody could help before I decide to
> purchase Acrobat-Professional.
>
> Questions:
>
> a) Should I use Acrobat-Professional to process testform.pdf ?

Not sure what you mean by 'process' here.
Adobe Reader is all that's required to read a PDF containing
forms. This is sufficient to fill-in the form, and send data
back to a receiving program (e.g. a cgi-script).


> Could version-5 do this job? Or must be version-6??
> Is there any command in pdf-Latex similar to something like
>
>         \usepackage{acrobatProfessional}
>
> b) Should the viewers (Clients) have a copy of acrobat-Professional instead
> of the free copy of acrobatReader in order to send data to me? This is my

No; the Reader is sufficient for this. See

     http://rutherglen.ics.mq.edu.au/~macqtex/

for an application of pdfLaTeX-generated PDF forms,
which we use to test/train students in mathematical concepts.
(It's a system for serving self-marking quizzes, and recording
the student's results.)


> interpretation of the error message. In this case, the application of
> pdf-forms would be very restrictive.


>
> c) Hyperref has been around for many years. What is the easiest way to pass
> data from   testform.pdf to the action-file: abcxyz.php?? Related pointers
> to examples would also be greatly appreciated.

I've not used php for this.
The MacQTeX application, at the URL above, uses Perl to read and
process the forms-data sent to a CGI-script (written in Perl).

> \begin{Form}[action=abcxyz.php, method=post]
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

This cannot work.
The adddess needs to be a full URL, so that the web-server
receives the incoming data; e.g.

   [action=http://www.tug.org/~myself/abcxyz.php,method=post]

(for a user  myself  at  www.tug.org  )


>
> Thank you in advance.   twma at maths.uwa.edu.au

Hope this helps,

	Ross Moore


>
> -------------------------------
> >
> >hyperref/test/testform.tex
> >
> -------------------------------
>
> \documentclass{article}
> \usepackage[bookmarks=false]{hyperref}
> \setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
> \setlength{\parskip}{10pt}
> \begin{document}
> \begin{Form}[action=abcxyz.php, method=post]
>          %% only minor change from the original version
>
> \TextField[width=3in,name=xname,value={Bilbo Baggins}]
>     {Full name:  }
>
> \Submit{Send}
> \Reset{Clear}
>
> \end{Form}
> \end{document}
>
> ---------------------------------
>
> Adobe Reader does not save the data that you enter into form fields. When
> you've completed this form, you may be able to submit it for further
> processing or print it. To save the data you enter into the form fields,
> please complete the form using Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional or Adobe
> Acrobat 6.0 Standard, or later instead of Adobe Reader.
>
>
>
>
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