Where is livecycle

This XDP represents a complete form. It cannot be done with Acrobat since Acrobat is not a document design tool.

This is why LiveCycle Designer, which is a completely separate application, is included in the Acrobat Professional installation- to give users the ability to create XDP files.

Unfortunately, Adobe has not been keen to make this distinction clear to users. To the uninitiated, it appears as if LiveCycle Designer is part of Acrobat and that it is the only option for creating a form, neither of which are true. Once created, the XDP can be rendered into any displayable document technology for which someone was willing to write a converter.

There is no such thing as an XDP viewer. It first reads all the XML data stored in the PDF and then merges the XFA template, the data model, and any other supporting information to create the complete runtime form. Acrobat turns off its normal page rendering engine and turns on the special XFA rendering engine. The runtime model is then used to generate the actual page views that can be displayed and interact with the user.

Acrobat also selectively turns off parts of the traditional JavaScript engine and several standard PDF features.

In general, it turns off anything that has to do with pages, since the pages are rendered with the LiveCycle Engine. These features include anything involving form fields, annotations, OCG layers, and multimedia. Naturally, the reverse was also the downside: the inclusion of a multitude of tools could drastically increase expenses. With all these offerings, there is one of these products that stood out in terms of its usage and popularity: LiveCycle Designer.

Unlike the majority of the available tools, this one existed as a desktop application and did not require the utilization of an application server. This allowed end-users to design forms and documents with pixel-perfect precision, but also allowing for rather complex dynamic content through the ability to add scripts and by separating of content into fragments.

For many end-users, the term LiveCycle is synonymous with LiveCycle Designer, though it is important that the distinction is made. This product falls more into a gray area when looking at the End Of Life of the suite. As a whole, Adobe is no longer offering support or maintenance on LiveCycle server, nor are they providing software and security updates.

Designer, however, could be purchased solely as a desktop application, and updates are obtained through subsequent purchases in this case. Considering the wide range of tools LiveCycle offered, not to mention the demand and popularity associated, it should come as no surprise that they have not been abandoned. To the contrary, many of these, along with some new, are bundled together in what is currently known as AEM Forms.

The Forms portion marries together all of the LiveCycle tools, resulting in an average cost saving since the individual components are no longer purchased separately the exception being Document Security, formerly DRM.

Equally, some new tools are added in the mix, creating a state-of-the-art platform for form and document management, data capture, automation, and interactive communications. This service is more advanced with JavaScript available. Authors Cheridan Smith. Front Matter Pages i-xxiii. Introducing Livecycle Designer. Pages Understanding Forms and Design.

Learning the Fundamentals of Designing Forms. Understanding Interactive Forms. Getting into Advanced Form Design.