Adobe acrobat 7.0.5 sdk User Manual

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Forms and the Acrobat SDK
Types of Forms
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such as saving data to a file or printing. It can also include selection lists, calculations, 
and validations.
Static - A static form design presents a fixed layout of text, graphics, and field areas. The 
resulting form retains its exact layout regardless of the amount of data merged into it. A 
static form design can also be designed to have interactive capabilities.
Dynamic - A dynamic form design produces a form that has the ability to grow or shrink 
according to the amount of data being merged into it. A dynamic form design can also 
be designed to have interactive capabilities.
XML forms can be understood in terms of two major components: templates and content. 
The templates define presentation, calculation, and interaction rules, and are based on 
XML. Content is the static or dynamic data, stored in the document, that is bound to the 
templates.
For dynamic XML forms, the content is defined after binding to a template. This means that 
the following are possible:
Fields can be moved or resized.
Fields can automatically grow or shrink according to the amount of text added or 
removed.
As a field grows, it can span multiple pages.
Repeating subforms can be spawned as needed, and page contents will shift 
accordingly.
Elements on the page are shown or hidden as needed.
To take advantage of the rich forms functionality offered by the XFA plug-in, use Adobe 
Designer to create or edit the templates and save your forms in the XML Data Package 
format (XDP) or as a PDF document. Use XDP if the data is processed by server applications, 
and PDF if the data is processed by Acrobat.
Acrobat Forms
With Acrobat forms, you can author form fields and retrieve data from those form fields. For 
Adobe Reader, the Forms plug-in does not allow form authoring, but allows users to fill in 
data and print Acrobat forms. The Adobe Reader Forms plug-in also does not allow users to 
save data to the local hard disk. Both Acrobat and Adobe Reader allow Web designers to 
send data from the form back to a Web server.