Integrating PDF Generator ES with our applications

[Former Community Member]

We have several applications that produce and manipulate PDF files in a variety of ways, in order to produce customer correspondence (letters, statements, etc.). We have the used following methods...

1. VB.Net using Crystal Reports, producing PDFs using the Export to PDF function of Crystal Reports.

2. VB.Net using Active Reports, producing PDFs using the Export to PDF function of Active Reports.

3. MS-ACCESS producing PDFs by printing to the Acrobat PDFWriter.

4. MS-ACCESS producing PDFs by opening a Word document and printing it to the Acrobat PDFWriter.

5. MS-ACCESS using the PDF Library to split a PDF into pieces in some cases, or combine multiple PDFs into one PDF in other cases.

These are all batch jobs, running automatically overnight.

We are considering upgrading to the latest release of Adobe, and improving our process while we are at it. PDF Generator ES looks interesting. But these applications are not web-based, so is it possible to integrate PDFG/ES with our applications? Or is there another solution? Thanks, anyone.

[Former Community Member]

so you want to integrate non web based application with ES/PDFG?

[Former Community Member]

Yes, I guess that's the short version of my requirements. Is that not possible, or just very difficult? Do you have a better suggestion?

Thanks

[Jasmin_Charbonn]

The only way I think you'll be able to call LiveCycle ES from non web application is by using java application. You can still make RMI calls from a standard java applciation if you add the application server client jar files to your project.



You'll still need an application server to install and run the LiveCyle ES components.



Jasmin

[Jasmin_Charbonn]

I got more information from enginnering, and you would still be able to call the web service interface from LiveCycle from you stand alone application(Java or non Java app).



There's also a watch folder and email integration that can be used also to communicate with LiveCycle ES.



Jasmin

[Former Community Member]

LiveCycle ES works very well with non-Java applications using the web-services APIs.



If you want to auto-generate PDFs from their non-Java application, then you can easily do the integration by invoking the web-services APIs exposed by LiveCycle PDF Generator ES. Moreover, Adobe provides other interfaces like watched folders and e-mails to help automate the process of generating PDFs from non-Java applications.



On the other hand, if you have a Java application, Adobe provides pure Java APIs to help automate PDF creation.



Amit

[Former Community Member]

One of the most powerful features of LiveCycle ES is that most services can be invoked via web services. Therefore you can create a proxy object (for example - a .NET client assembly) and use it in a web-based application. Therefore you can invoke ES operations from ASP.NET web applications.

[Former Community Member]

Thanks everyone, however I am still confused (too much a newby I guess). You are talking about java and/or WEB applications. However my applications are not. They are WINDOWS applications, written in VB.Net or MS-ACCESS. So do your suggestions still apply? If it is necessary to write some kind of interface layer that allows my applications to call the web services, I can probably find someone to do that for me. But I am still not sure that this will work.

If anyone has a real example that would sure help.

Thanks,

Keith

[Former Community Member]

Once you create a .NET client assembly based on the PDF Generator ES WSDL - you can use it in a VB.NET application (this app can be a console app, a web-app app, or a windows app). The LiveCycle SDK documentation discusses how to create a .NET client assembly and work with PDF Generator using web services. The SDK documentation can be located at: http://www.adobe.com/support/documentation/en/livecycle/es/