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PDF with embedded XML

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Dan Sideen

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Nov 8, 2005, 8:23:13 PM11/8/05
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A few years ago, I attended an Adobe presentation where they demonstrated
"smart" pdf documents which had data embedded in the form of XML. As an
example, they showed an invoice that could be sent to a customer. The
customer could extract the xml content, and load it directly into their A/P
system.

Haven't heard much about that lately. Anyone have real life experience with
intelligent pdf documents with XML that can be used as input to other
applications?

Bruno Lowagie

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Nov 9, 2005, 3:04:29 AM11/9/05
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Any type of file (including XML) can be attached to a PDF file.
That's just standard PDF functionality.

There's also XMP, which is an XML based platform to add metadata to PDF,
but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

br,
Bruno

Aandi Inston

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Nov 9, 2005, 4:06:39 AM11/9/05
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"Dan Sideen" <dans...@rogers.com> wrote:

>A few years ago, I attended an Adobe presentation where they demonstrated
>"smart" pdf documents which had data embedded in the form of XML. As an
>example, they showed an invoice that could be sent to a customer. The
>customer could extract the xml content, and load it directly into their A/P
>system.

All forms created by Acrobat Designer, which is included with Acrobat
Professional 7.0, follow this model. In fact the PDF becomes little
more than a placeholder - all the exciting stuff is in the embedded
XML.
----------------------------------------
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Bruno Lowagie

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Nov 9, 2005, 4:17:35 AM11/9/05
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Aandi Inston wrote:
> "Dan Sideen" <dans...@rogers.com> wrote:
>
>
>>A few years ago, I attended an Adobe presentation where they demonstrated
>>"smart" pdf documents which had data embedded in the form of XML. As an
>>example, they showed an invoice that could be sent to a customer. The
>>customer could extract the xml content, and load it directly into their A/P
>>system.
>
>
> All forms created by Acrobat Designer, which is included with Acrobat
> Professional 7.0, follow this model. In fact the PDF becomes little
> more than a placeholder - all the exciting stuff is in the embedded
> XML.

Google for XFA for more info if this is what you saw at the demo.
br,
Bruno

Dan Sideen

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Nov 9, 2005, 8:06:24 PM11/9/05
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Thanks for the input. I know how to create XML with Forms Designer - my
question was more "is anybody actually doing anything useful with this
approach".

So far, I'm not terribly impressed with Adobe's efforts to recreate the
JetForm technology on top of Acrobat, and would like to see some real world
examples.

"Bruno Lowagie" <br...@nospam.lowagie.com> wrote in message
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