Adobe XL Pro Vs LiveCycle for dynamic PDFs

Question

My requirement is:

To have a dynamic PDF on my website containing data pulled from an XML file.

I have researched here and thought that Adobe LiveCycle using the ITextSharp Library to combine XML data with the PDF form to generate a populated document was the solution I needed.

I have just been on the phone with Adobe sales for 25 minutes with a further 15 minutes on chat and the outcome is that they havn't a clue what to tell me and they recommended Adobe XL Pro..

I am confused, could anyone help clarify the solution I need?

Yours gratefully

Rodney

Answer 1

I believe I am as confused as you are after reading this question. I'll provide some information to you and hopefully this clears things up for you.

1. Adobe LiveCycle ES is a server side product that allows you to ( in addition to a few hundred other things) merge XML data with with a PDF template created in Adobe LiveCycle Designer. You don't need any other framework to merge any sort of data with a PDF template other than LiveCycle.

2. Adobe XI Pro is essentially Adobe Acrobat (desktop product) that allows you to perform a number of operations in the desktop environment. It will not allow you to merge data with XML on the fly since this is something that the server side products do.

Hopefully, this information clears things up for you. You would need to talk to Adobe or one of its partners to get a license for Adobe LiveCycle ES before you can use the product.

Please let me know if you have any other questions.