Tag Archives: Acrobat

Convert Radio Button Groups to Checkbox Groups in PDF Forms

If you’ve worked with PDF forms, you are probably familiar with radio buttons: There is one problem with radio buttons: When you have a selection that also includes “non of the above”, you have to create a separate option for … Continue reading

Posted in Acrobat, JavaScript, PDF, Tutorial | Tagged , , , , , | 40 Comments

Who is Hogging My File?

After working on your PDF file for a while, you are ready to save it back to the disk, but Acrobat greets you with an error message: “The document could not be saved. The file may be read-only, or another … Continue reading

Posted in Acrobat, PDF | Tagged , , , , | 39 Comments

Escape from Uninstaller Hell

Disclaimer: This article demonstrates how to edit the Windows Registry. This is a dangerous thing to do. If you do not feel comfortable doing these kinds of system changes, please don’t proceed. If you do proceed, you are doing so … Continue reading

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The Trouble With the XREF Table

Have you ever tried to debug a problem with the XREF table in a PDF file? I’ve been debugging PDF problems for a long time, and every now and then I come across a file that has a corrupt XREF … Continue reading

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Validating Field Contents

One of the questions I get asked again and again is how to validate a field value in an AcroForm with a custom validation script. Adobe provided a lot of infrastructure to do that with just a simple script. Let’s … Continue reading

Posted in Acrobat, PDF, Programming | Tagged , , , | 355 Comments

Acrobat JavaScripts – Where do they go?

JavaScripts in Acrobat can either be attached to a document – for example to validate a form field – or they can be loaded directly into the application as a folder level script. It’s pretty straight forward to figure out … Continue reading

Posted in Acrobat, JavaScript, mac, PDF, Programming | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Best Way to Learn Acrobat Scripting

Every now and then I come across the question “What is the best way to learn scripting for Adobe Acrobat? Are there any books or other resources averrable?”. After doing some research, I think I finally found the best resource … Continue reading

Posted in Acrobat, JavaScript, PDF, Programming | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Is Your Acrobat Plug-in Still Using ADM?

For a few years now Adobe has been telling 3rd party developers that the ADM (Adobe Dialog Manager) will be discontinued, and that existing plug-ins may have to be ported to something else. If I remember correctly, this started with … Continue reading

Posted in Acrobat, mac, PDF, Programming | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Developing Acrobat JavaScript on a MacBook

Acrobat’s JavaScript is a great tool to extend the application, or to automate reoccurring tasks. There are several ways a JavaScript can be added to the application or a document (e.g. folder level scripts, validation scripts, event handling scripts, …), … Continue reading

Posted in Acrobat, Apple, JavaScript, mac, PDF, Programming | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Nuance PDF Reader

Nuance (the people behind OmniPage and Dragon Naturally Speaking and a bunch of other things) release a competitor to the free Adobe Reader – the free Nuance PDF Reader (http://www.nuance.com/imaging/products/pdf-reader.asp). The feature list looks very promising: Fill and save PDF … Continue reading

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