PDF Forms Using Acrobat® and LiveCycle® Designer Bible

Chapter 10. Enabling PDF Forms for Adobe Reader

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Getting familiar with Adobe Reader usage rights

• Adding usage rights to PDF forms

• Editing forms that have been enabled with usage rights

• Automating Acrobat tasks

Enabling features for Adobe Reader or adding special features for Reader users is a means whereby certain features not appearing in the default Adobe Reader program can be added to PDF documents. This enabling function can be handled by one of two applications. You can use a server product such as the Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions Server (LCRE) or Adobe Acrobat 9 Standard, Pro, and Pro Extended.

Prior to Acrobat 9, Acrobat Standard users were left out of the enabling arena. Using Acrobat 9 and greater, you have one of two available enabling features. Acrobat 9 Standard can enable forms for saving form data and signing documents with digital signatures. Acrobat Pro and ProExtended can enable forms for saving data and signing documents with digital signatures and enable PDF documents for commenting.

In this chapter, you discover some of the issues related to enabling files for Adobe Reader users and some reasons why you might extend enabling for comments.

Understanding Reader Enablement

We refer to enabled forms as forms that have special features that were added in Acrobat 9 Standard and above or Acrobat Professional 7.0 and above. Adobe Readers users can add the following special features to a PDF file:

• Save form data.

• Apply digital signatures.

• Use comment and markup ...