I’m trying to edit a very large PDF (200 pages or so) and I want to edit multiple fields when it is time to distribute it. For example, I want to set up Acrobat so the name and some other simple fields will change depending on who I am distributing the PDF for. I want to be able to do this without going through each page and changing it.
I’ve been doing some research on this and I can’t find a good way to do it. I have also checked into the actions tab in Adobe XI and I don’t see a way to do it. Am I missing something obvious?
What is the best way to do this? Thank you to anyone who can help.
Have a look at the Acrobat SDK on the Adobe web site (here: http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat.html).
In Acrobat you can create actions (as your question indicates you’ve found already). One of those actions allows you to run a JavaScript on your document. The SDK I’ve pointed you to above contains full information on how to write JavaScripts that can manipulate the document.
In that JavaScript API (amongst many other things) you’ll find a “doc” object that has a method called getField which lets you get a specific field by name and then manipulate its attributes.
If I understand what you’re trying to do correctly, you could make distribution scripts that are called by actions. Each script would run through all pages of your document, get the fields for that page and do whatever you need to do based on your workflow logic.