Adobe Acrobat 5.0

[Shevy]

does anyone know if i can add a toolbar button in adobe acrobat?
if so how can i do that through code?
I need to write a simple plugin however i do not know C++ so i need to do it in javascript or vb.
any help with this would be great.
Thanks.

[alex_read]

I don't think you can do this, but before giving up completely, you might want to check out the developer sdk's & tech support lines over at adobe.com first...

[RobDog888]

I have done some automation of Acrobat and I have found that
the main, perhaps only, way to add a toolbar to Acrobat is to use
C++. You can add menuitems easily using JavaScript, though.

If you are just trying to control Acrobat then you may be able to
get by with VB. Add a reference to "Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Type
Library." You won't get all the toolbars and menus, but you can
create your own, sort of Acrobat viewer.

[Shevy]

Thanks for your response.
I wrote some code in VB as you suggested and it worked. However when i try to put that code into ASP, the page freezes.
What am I missing?? I starts freezing when i add the line

Set gApp = server.CreateObject("AcroExch.App")

if you have any ideas i would appreciate it.
Thanks

[RobDog888]

Do you have Acrobat installed on your webserver?
It needs to be, this could be the issue.

[Shevy]

of course i have it installed.
in fact i ran my vb program on my local machine - works fine. then i test it in the ASP page from localhost. Shouldnt it be able to access the same adobe??
Thanks again.

[RobDog888]

Can you give me a overview of what and how you are trying to
accomplish? I just want to understand what you are trying to
do so I can help better.

[Shevy]

ok,
I am trying to create a scanning project from the web. Meaning there will be an asp page with a button that says scan. I want that as soon as the person clicks scan the adobe scan dialogue box should appear and set a directory for the document to be scanned into.
so far i wrote the following code:

Dim gApp As Acrobat.CAcroApp
    Set gApp = CreateObject("AcroExch.App")
    gApp.MenuItemExecute ("Scan")

this works when run it from visual basic on my local machine. it briings up the scan dialogue box.
so now firstly i need to get this code to work from asp.
then i need to add funtionality (if possible) to make it set the directory.

I hope this gave you some more of an understanding.
I hope you will be able to help.
Thanks.

[RobDog888]

Could it be some type of permissions issue?

Or the only other thing that I can think of is if it is waiting for
Acrobat to finish loading and it tries to execute the scan menu
before the app is done loading.

Can you get it to do something else instead of the scan?

[Shevy]

Maybe it is a permission issue, I just have no idea what permission issue it could be, do you?
As per the second thing you suggested, I think that is not so since the code already freezes when i just have the first 2 lines of code - initializing the variable and createobject acroexch.app.
Thanks again for your help.

[Shevy]

I got a little further but I am still having problems with it.
Now Here is my code:

dim gApp
Set gApp = server.CreateObject("AcroExch.App")
gApp.Show
gApp.MenuItemExecute("Scan")
gApp.Exit
set gApp = nothing

It freezes out on gApp.MenuItemExecute("Scan")
and then when i go to the task manager and it says i dont have access to kill adobe.exe so i need to kill it from the command.
any ideas?
thanks.

[RobDog888]

I remember that there is some kind of security or protection
under Acrobat for when you want to automate it using JavaScript
and menus from a web enviroment. Something about the
document having to reside on the local machine in order to
execute or add menuitems.

Do you have any of the SDK documentation from Acrobat?
I remember reading about it in there. There may be something
similar when using vb.

[Shevy]

but i am only trying to execute the menuitem not add a menuitem? what can be different from vb and asp?

[RobDog888]

Can you test your code by changing the menuitem to execute?
Also, it is true that the menuitems are not actually named as
seen. So maybe you need to get the actual name of the "Scan"
menuitem. This could be the freeze reason. Try changing it to
something else simple. Give me a minute to retrieve thae actual
name of the scan.

[RobDog888]

In Acrobats JavaScript console type this and press enter to list
out the actual names of the menuitems in Acrobat.

app.listMenuItems();

Where is the Scan menuitem?
I don't have it in mine. Is it a plug-in that you have?

[RobDog888]

Found some documentation at Adobe...


How To: Automate Scanning

Summary
Adobe Acrobat offers no means of automatic document scanning and saving.

Issue
When trying to create an automatic document scanning and
saving process that does not require user intervention, I call
app.MenuItemExecute("Save"). This causes Adobe Acrobat to
display the 'Save As' dialog. Is it possible to suppress displaying
these response windows?

Solution
There are no Acrobat api's including the MenuItemExecute
("Scan") that will automate scanning and saving a document(s)
without user input. There is no way to suppress nor pass
keystrokes to the Scan or Save dialogs, which are a result of
executing their menu items.


Please note that Adobe Acrobat Capture works with the scanner
to convert paper documents to pdf.
http://www.adobe.com/products/acrcapture/main.html

Don't know if this helps.

[Shevy]

Thank you for taking out your time for me. It is really appreicated. you definitely helped me somewhat.
I got the scan part to work.
what i did was i wrote is as a vbscript locally to the client so each client's personal adobe acrobat brings up the scan. I then scan in the document. my next question is. do you know how i can set the directory programmatically so that it will scan into a directory automatically. There is a setPreference method, is there a preference in adobe where to scan to??
Thanks again.

[RobDog888]

You can write some JavaScript to hard code the path for saving
files so I assume that you can do the same with the scan.

What I have done was removed the "Save" menuitem and
the "Save" toolbar button. Then I added a menuitem to "Save
to...", for example, and I had JavaScript code to save the file to a
particular directory.

The JavaScript file needs to located in the directory of
\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Acrobat\Javascripts

The only issue will be that the file will need to be on the client station.

[Shevy]

would you be able to give me some code snippet from that?

[RobDog888]

Sure, give me some time to trim it down. I have allot of code that
doesn't pertain to what you want to do. Remember that the code
will need to be loaded on every workstation the will be using
your app. Its client side processing.

Hold on...

[RobDog888]

Here is some basic stuff you need. Platform detection and the
removal of the save menu item and save toolbar button.

If you want the code to execute for other versions like Reader
then you need to add the file to the JavaScripts directory under
\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Reader\JavaScripts
To reset your Acrobat back to its original look and feel, just
rename the JavaScript file to a different extension and it wont be
loaded at startup.

disclosed = true;

var sPlatform = app.viewerVariation;
var sPos = "5";

var sMsg = "Save to ";
var sTest = event.target;

var sWorkingDir = "/D/Report Forms/Working/";

if (sPlatform == "Reader") {
  sPos = "5";
}

if (sPlatform == "Fill-In") {
  sPos = "5";
}

if (sPlatform == "Full") {
  sPos = "7";
}

if (sPlatform == "Reader") {

//HIDE MENU ITEMS
  app.hideMenuItem("Save");
  app.hideMenuItem("SaveAs");
  app.hideMenuItem("Import");
  app.hideMenuItem("Export");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocSecurity");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocInfo");
  app.hideMenuItem("GeneralPrefs");

//HIDE TOOLBARBUTTONS
  app.hideToolbarButton("Open");
  app.hideToolbarButton("Save");
  app.hideToolbarButton("ADBE:SPDR:OpStatTlButton");

}


if (sPlatform == "Fill-In") {

//HIDE MENU ITEMS
  app.hideMenuItem("Save");
  app.hideMenuItem("SaveAs");
  app.hideMenuItem("Web2PDF:OpnURL");
  app.hideMenuItem("OpnAsPDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("Import");
  app.hideMenuItem("Export");
  app.hideMenuItem("AcroForm:ExportFDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocSecurity");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocInfo");
  app.hideMenuItem("Prefs");

//HIDE TOOLBARBUTTONS
  app.hideToolbarButton("Open");
  app.hideToolbarButton("Save");
  app.hideToolbarButton("ADBE:SPDR:OpStatTlButton");

}


if (sPlatform == "Full") {

//HIDE MENU ITEMS
  app.hideMenuItem("Save");
  app.hideMenuItem("SaveAs");
  app.hideMenuItem("Web2PDF:OpnURL");
  app.hideMenuItem("OpenAsPDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("Import");
  app.hideMenuItem("Export");
  app.hideMenuItem("AcroForm:ExportFDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("Batch");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocSecurity");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocInfo");
  app.hideMenuItem("Prefs");

//HIDE TOOLBARBUTTONS
  app.hideToolbarButton("Open");
  app.hideToolbarButton("Save");
  app.hideToolbarButton("ADBE:SPDR:OpStatTlButton");

}

More to follow...

[Shevy]

Thanks alot. I will go through it.
I appreciate your time and effort.

[RobDog888]

Your welcome.
The best part is comming up still.

[Shevy]

cant wait !

[RobDog888]

Here is the entire working script with some extra features like file
name validation to a particular naming format.
I had to make some changes from the previous post. The position
of the menu item changed when I moved some code around so
that is why I posted the entire code again.

disclosed = true;

var sPlatform = app.viewerVariation;
var sPos = "5";

var sLogin = identity.loginName;
var sTest = event.target;

var sWorkingDir = "/D/Report Forms/Working/";

app.alert("Welcome user: " + sLogin,3,0);

if (sPlatform == "Reader") {
  sPos = "3";
}

if (sPlatform == "Fill-In") {
  sPos = "3";
}

if (sPlatform == "Full") {
  sPos = "3";
}


if (sPlatform == "Reader") {

//HIDE MENU ITEMS
  app.hideMenuItem("Save");
  app.hideMenuItem("SaveAs");
  app.hideMenuItem("Import");
  app.hideMenuItem("Export");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocSecurity");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocInfo");
  app.hideMenuItem("GeneralPrefs");

//HIDE TOOLBARBUTTONS
  app.hideToolbarButton("Open");
  app.hideToolbarButton("Save");
  app.hideToolbarButton("ADBE:SPDR:OpStatTlButton");

}

if (sPlatform == "Fill-In") {

//HIDE MENU ITEMS
  app.hideMenuItem("Save");
  app.hideMenuItem("SaveAs");
  app.hideMenuItem("Web2PDF:OpnURL");
  app.hideMenuItem("OpnAsPDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("Import");
  app.hideMenuItem("Export");
  app.hideMenuItem("AcroForm:ExportFDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocSecurity");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocInfo");
  app.hideMenuItem("Prefs");

//HIDE TOOLBARBUTTONS
  app.hideToolbarButton("Open");
  app.hideToolbarButton("Save");
  app.hideToolbarButton("ADBE:SPDR:OpStatTlButton");

}

if (sPlatform == "Full") {

//HIDE MENU ITEMS
  app.hideMenuItem("Save");
  app.hideMenuItem("SaveAs");
  app.hideMenuItem("Web2PDF:OpnURL");
  app.hideMenuItem("OpenAsPDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("Import");
  app.hideMenuItem("Export");
  app.hideMenuItem("AcroForm:ExportFDF");
  app.hideMenuItem("Batch");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocSecurity");
  app.hideMenuItem("DocInfo");
  app.hideMenuItem("Prefs");

//HIDE TOOLBARBUTTONS
  app.hideToolbarButton("Open");
  app.hideToolbarButton("Save");
  app.hideToolbarButton("ADBE:SPDR:OpStatTlButton");

}

app.addMenuItem({cName: "Save to Working Dir...", cParent: "File", cExec: "event.rc = SaveWorking() != 2", cEnable: "event.rc = TestMe() != 2", nPos: sPos});

function SaveWorking() {
  
  var now = new Date();
  var yr = util.printd('yy', now);

  var cResp1 = app.response({cQuestion:'Save as ' + yr + '-?????.pdf',cTitle:'Save to Working Directory',cDefault:GetFileName(this.path)});
  
  if (cResp1 == null) {
    app.alert('Canceled');
    return 2;
  }
  
  var sValid = ValidateFileName(cResp1);

  if (cResp1 != sValid) {
    app.alert('Not a valid filename format!',1,0);
    return 2;
  }    

  if (cResp1 == sValid) {

    var cResp = app.alert('Save to - ' + sWorkingDir + cResp1,2,1);
    var sPath = (sWorkingDir + cResp1);

    if (cResp == 1) {
      this.saveAs(sPath);
      app.alert("Saved!",3,0);
      return 1;
    }
    if (cResp == 2) {
      app.alert('Canceled',1,0);
      return 2;
    }
    
  }
  
}

function ValidateFileName(sFileName) {
  
  var sNewFileName = util.printx("99-99999", sFileName);

  sNewFileName = sNewFileName + '.pdf';
  if (sNewFileName == sFileName) {
    return (sFileName);
  }
  if (sNewFileName != sFileName) {
    return ('BAD');
  }

}

function GetFileName(sFilePath) {

  var sFileName = sFilePath.split('/');
  var i = 0;
  var sNewFileName = '';
  for (i in sFileName) {
    //app.alert('Array element [' + i + '] - ' + sFileName[i]);
  }
  sNewFileName = sFileName[i];
  return(sNewFileName);

}

function TestMe() {

  var d = app.activeDocs;

  for (var i=0; i < d.length; i++) {
    //
  }

  if (i == 0) {
    return 2;
  }
  if (i != 0) {
    return 1;
  }

}

Let me know if this will work for you.
This took me a couple of frustrating days to research and figure
out when I started this for a customer.

Enjoy!