Creating XFA-Compliant Forms with LiveCycle Designer

Adobe LiveCycle Designer is a design tool for creating rich interactive e-forms that comply with XFA (XML Forms Architecture, sometimes referred to as XFA forms). You can design e-form templates and save them in PDF and XDP format. The target format of the forms depends upon who the end users are and how they will interact with the document and submit their data.

E-forms saved and distributed in the PDF format are worked upon by end users using the Adobe Reader software.

The XDP format provides greatly enhanced capabilities for rendering and submitting user data, and requires the Adobe Forms Server for its rendering and data submission.

The webMethods product suite requires e-form definition in XDP format. The typical steps involved in creating the design-time XDP from a PDF document are as follows:

1. Form creation—Create the e-form in LiveCycle Designer and save it as PDF (Static or Dynamic).

2. Enable Usage Rights—To be able to save and export form data, you must set the appropriate usage rights for the PDF file using Adobe Reader Extension. Note that usage rights may also be enabled using Acrobat Professional software.

3. Preview and Export—Open up the rights-enabled PDF form using Adobe Reader and then enter sample data into all the form fields. This step is particularly important because the exported data file is used to infer the XML schema of the form fields. The quality of the input data dictates how well the form fields are represented in the schema and it is advised that conforming data be entered for each of the form fields.

Additionally, care should be taken to ensure that the values match the data-type and format expected from the end users. For example, area code, phone number, and date fields may allow both formatted and non-formatted data; in this case, during preview, you are advised to enter the data in the format that is most likely to be used by the end-users. Be sure to enter data for non-required fields as well.

4. Save and export in XDP format—Finally, review the filled-in form and make sure that valid data is entered for all editable fields. Save as "XML Data package (xdp)" and export the form data as an XML file (the default extension of the exported file is .xdp). If you plan to use the e-form with a task application so the task user can upload and download e-forms, save the file in PDF format as well.

You can now place the new e-form template (the exported .xdp file from step 4 above) in the repository templates folder, or in other location as described in General Concepts. From there, the template can be imported into Software AG Designer as an IS document type or as business data for a task.