Mail Merge, can it be done with PDF?

[Former Community Member]

My company is looking at moving from Word to PDF for mail merge, but I do not see any way to implement mail merge with a PDF other than its standard form-fill approach. I like the data formats available for form-filling and the flexibility it provides, but can it do a 'true' mail merge scenario, where values will need to be plugged in the middle of a sentence?



For example:



The account balance for <<First Name>> <<Last Name>> is <<balance>>, and is due by no later than <<due date>>.



If Adobe does not support this directly are there 3rd parties that do? I've looked at ASPPdf, and PDFLib, but both of them rely on the form-filling, instead of mail merge that PDF inherently supports.



Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[Former Community Member]

Form Designer will let you create the form, but automatically merging the form with data and then procesing it (such as mailing out a batch of forms) is beyond what you can do with just Designer.



Adobe has a number of server products designed for doing this sort of thing - have a look at:



http://www.adobe.com/products/server/formserver/index.html



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SteveX

Adobe Systems

[Former Community Member]

It is really the "how to create the form" part that I am after. The best I have been able to do so far is to use subforms that are of type "Flow Content". But when you mix text nodes with fields, you have to do some fenagling to get them to line up properly. With this approach, I still have not been able to find a way to write paragraphs of text that have merge fields in various places and have it output correctly.



Am I missing something or is there a better way to do this?



Are there any examples out there of form letters that have merge fields inside paragraphs in the letter (as part of sentences)?



Thanks.

[Former Community Member]

Ah yes - there is a better way. Floating Fields.



When you're typing into a text node, you can right-click on the node and pick Floating Field from the menu. This inserts a field into the text stream exactly like what you originally asked for.



I've attached a quick sample.

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SteveX

Adobe Systems

[wcerjcj]

SteveX, I don't see the sample you posted - can you post / attach it again.

[Former Community Member]

Exactly what I was looking for! Only for some reason it is not available on right click, I have to go to the Insert menu when typing into the text field.



Thank you for your help.