Adobe Acrobat SDK
Introduction
Developing Plug-ins and Applications
Indexed searching 24
Indexed searching
Indexed searching enables you to catalog, index, search, and highlight text in PDF files. Simple sequential
text searching may be too time consuming for long documents, and completely inadequate for searching
a large collection of documents. For information, see
“Working with Words” on page 131
.
Text retrieval systems overcome this problem by building a search index containing information on the
location of all words in each document in the collection. A search system uses this index to determine
which documents—and word locations within those documents—satisfy a given query. The search
system then allows a user to browse the found documents, optionally displaying or highlighting the
matching items.
Modifying file access
Plug-ins can provide their own file access procedures that read and write data when requested by the
Acrobat core API. Using this capability, a plug-in can enable PDF documents to be read from on-line
systems, e–mail, document management, or database programs. For information, see
“Accessing non-PDF
files” on page 85
.
Creating new annotation types
Plug-ins can create their own annotation types, including any data they need. A custom annotation type
can enable a user to draw (not just type) in an annotation, it can provide support for multiple fonts or text
styles, or it can support annotations that can only be viewed by specific users. For example, you can use
the Acrobat core API to create 3D annotations. For information, see
“Creating 3D Annotations” on
page 203
.
Dynamically adding text to PDF documents
You can use the Acrobat core API or the PDF Library API to dynamically modify a PDF document. For
example, a plug-in or PDF Library application can retrieve data from an enterprise database and insert the
data into a PDF document. For information, see
“Inserting Text into PDF Documents” on page 62
.
Understanding your target application
Both Acrobat and Adobe Reader accept plug-ins. Adobe Reader is designed predominantly for viewing
and printing PDF documents. Acrobat Professional provides the ability to create PDF files, and offers
advanced control over document exchange, review and output. Acrobat Standard also provides the ability
to create PDF files and exchange and review comments.
Rights-enabled PDF documents
PDF documents that are
rights-enab
led can access specific functionality in Adobe Reader. PDF files can be
enabled for this additional functionality using Adobe LiveCycle® Reader Extensions. When a PDF
document is rights-enabled, additional APIs become available for plug-in development.
The following features can be enabled in a PDF document by LiveCycle Reader Extensions:
●
Basic form fill-in
●
Dynamic form fields (add and delete form fields)
●
Dynamic form pages (spawn template pages)
