How to add a drop down list to every page on a pre-existing pdf

[JasonEnsor]

Hi Guys,

This is a new area of development to me (i am more of a VBA developer than adobe). I have a document that is generated from an Oracle Database (PeopleSoft) in to a pdf. What i am wanting to do is add a drop down list to every page (1000 +) and allow each selection to be stored on the document. I have tried using the "duplicate" option however it seems that whatever option i select in the first drop down box is replicated in all of the other boxes. If i rename the second drop down box it resolves this isssue, however i do not really want to have to manually rename all of the drop down boxes. It there a way of auto incrementing the name of the Drop Down box or a way of running some code to rename the drop down boxes?

Any help or ideas that can be given on this would be appreciated.

Jason.

 

[spamjim]

This forum sees very low traffic. You might have better luck asking in Adobe's forums. This can probably be done with javascript.

Without understanding the scope of the project, it seems very odd/inefficient to create any form with 1000+ pages.

 

[JasonEnsor]

Each page that is created is a Students academic profile. Normally these would be printed out and notes would be made upon them and they would be stored in a paper folder taking up a lot of space, the idea is that we would have a drop down list for the decisions made regarding that student and a section for notes on each student on the electronic version and thus reducing the amount of paper used in the office. I will take your advice and try the adobe forums.

Many Thanks

J.

 

[spamjim]

The explanation seems even more unusual. This information would be best managed in the original database. Unless you are using that PDF file as a frontend to that database, PDF is a dead end, just like paper.

 

[JasonEnsor]

Hi,

I have solved my issue after digging around. By using some JavaScript I managed to setup a drop down box on each page and name it using the page number (thus making it unique). The reason for needing to do this on the pdf is because it is the result of a report showing all current students on a programme. This document is then displayed on screen to multiple academics in an assessment board and decisions about the student are made and recorded on the PDF. There is no need to store the information on the Database, plus if the information was to be stored on the Database it would possibly cost more to get the feature implemented than the time it would save as currently decisions are just written on paper copies of the documents.

 

[spamjim]

It is good to hear you found a solution.

I was not trying to challenge/question your process insomuch as pointing out why there is not already an automated function in Acrobat. You just have a very unusual situation. It is unlikely that Adobe engineers would have ever imagined such a usage case.