The Console Window is the best of the bunch. The other tools are very useful adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download have much better performance and stability in Acrobat XI than in previous versions.
However, the Console Window remains many times faster and easier to use than the other adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download, as well as being error free. The Console Window is a multi-purpose and somewhat generic tool. It is the default location where JavaScript error messages are displayed as well as being an entry window for testing and debugging Acrobat JavaScript code. It can also be used to execute code snippets to automate tasks in Acrobat and adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download analyze documents.
It does not do everything needed to debug code, but it does provide a quick and easy way to perform most of adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download code development tasks you'll ever need to do. In this article, we'll cover setting up and using this essential tool. Note: Special instructions for using the Console Window with Reader are provided at the end of the article.
If this is your first time using the Console Window, you will need to enable and configure it from Acrobat's Preferences settings. Depending on your platform, use one of the following methods to open the Preferences dialog Figure 1. In Preferences, select the JavaScript panel. These are the two most important preference settings. In fact, both of these settings may already be checked. JavaScript is turned on by default, and Acrobat will automatically ask you if you want to turn on the Console Window if you attempt to use it.
It is not a good idea to check Enable JavaScript debugger after Acrobat is restarted, except in two situations. First, you can enable it temporarily in order to change the "Exception" options. I prefer the options as they are shown in Figure 1, but uncheck this option before exiting the preferences. The reason for not enabling the debugger is because it has a significant negative impact on Acrobat performance, and can even cause Acrobat to crash.
So the only reason you would actually turn on the debugger is if you needed to use the debugging tools. If you don't already know how to use software debugging tools, you are much better off sticking to the Console Window. A very useful feature is the external JavaScript editor, since the default Acrobat editor is very basic.
A good JavaScript editor will have advanced features that make code manipulation and navigation easier when you are editing document code. You won't be using the JavaScript editor with the Console Window, but this group of settings has an interesting effect on it.
The Acrobat editor font and size settings are the same settings used in the Console Window. You can see in Figure 1 that I have chosen to use an external editor. This selection disables the Acrobat editor and grays out the font and size settings.
However, these are still the settings used by the Console Window. If you want to change them you'll need to temporarily enable the Acrobat editor to modify the settings, then reselect the external editor. In order for the settings to take affect you'll need to close and reopen the Console Window. After these preferences have been set Figure 1you're ready to start using the Console Window. The shortcut key can be a bit tricky on the Macintosh because there are slight differences between the keyboards on laptop and desktop systems.
So the keyboard shortcut is not always valid, but the tool button will always work. The tool panels are a new feature introduced in Acrobat X, so displaying the Console in earlier versions is slightly different. The Shortcut key is the same, but instead of a tool button, these earlier versions use a menu item. The Console Window section of the Debugger is in the bottom portion of the dialog, in the area labeled View.
In Figure 3, the View pull-down selection list is set to Console, meaning the Console Window is being shown. This area is also used to show the Script window for displaying runtime code when the debugger tools are enabled. In the figure, adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download Console is being shown immediately after Acrobat was started. The status messages are displayed by code built-into Acrobat and loaded on startup.
Each line represents a JavaScript module loaded by Acrobat. If there were any problems with these modules, or any others that Acrobat loads, error messages would also be displayed here.
Normally, we're not interested in these initial messages. So if you would like to try out some of the code presented here as examples, then clear the window by pressing the button that looks like a garbage can in the lower right corner of the window. Now we have a clean work area and are set up and ready to start using the Console Window. JavaScript code can be executed directly from the Console Window. This ability is a huge time saver since it provides a fast and easy way to test out code before it's placed into a scripting location where it will be more difficult to debug.
To run the code, make sure the cursor is on the same line as the text. You can place it anywhere on the line as long as nothing is selected. Either of the two following actions will cause Acrobat to run the code.
Acrobat always attempts to convert the result of an execution into text so that it can be displayed. Sometimes the result of an operation is not as clean or obvious as a number. Let's try something that doesn't have such a well-defined result.
Enter the following line in the Console Window and run it:. This calculation has an obvious mathematical adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download, but Acrobat JavaScript doesn't display an error message. Instead, as shown in Figure 5it displays the word "Infinity. It is much easier to find this kind of issue by executing individual lines in the Console Window where you can see the results immediately, than it is to debug it from a field-calculation script.
The next line of example code is something that might be used in a real script. It assigns a simple addition to a variable named 'sum'. As shown in Figure 6, the return value from this line of code is "undefined.
The calculation is executed and applied to the declared variable, sum. However, the first and primary operation on the line is the variable declaration, so this is the operation that returns a value to the Console Window. Unfortunately, variable declarations do not return a value. To overcome this small issue, the Console widow displays "undefined. Anything that adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download exist to the JavaScript environment is "undefined. This action executes just the selected text.
This technique of selecting parts of the code for execution is also useful for executing multiple lines of code. So far we've talked about executing code in the Console Window for testing adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download debugging, but there is no reason to restrict our usage to this limited theme.
Immediate Mode means that anything entered into this window is executed directly by the JavaScript engine. We can use it anytime we want to execute code for any purpose. Two uses for the Console Window besides code testing that immediately come to mind are automation and analysis. There are several adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download in Acrobat for manipulating and for acquiring information from PDFs and Acrobat.
For operations with a user interface button or menu item, the main advantage of using JavaScript is greater flexibility, since JavaScript adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download typically provide more options than the user interface equivalent.
For example, suppose you wanted to adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download the exact border color of a text field so you could use the same color in another location. Assuming the current document has a field with the adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download name on it, the following code displays the raw color value in the Console Window:. The result of this operation is a color array.
Remember, Acrobat attempts to convert all results into text. Arrays are converted to text by converting each adobe acrobat xi standard tutorial free download array element into a text string, so the result would look something like the following line when it is displayed in the Console Window. This is an example of document analysis with JavaScript.
We've just found out something that would have taken us just a little more effort to find out using the Acrobat property dialogs, and the information is in a very usable format.
We can easily copy and paste this information to accomplish some other purpose, for example applying the color to another field with this line of code:. Suppose a document needs to be checked for branding purposes, i. The following code uses a simple loop to display this color info in the Console Window for manual inspection:. Because of the loop, this code cannot be executed one line at a time. It has to be done all at once. Notice that in the loop there is a function called console.
It's in the fourth line. This function writes text to the Console Window and it will be discussed in the next section. Here's an example of a function that does not have an easy equivalent on the regular Acrobat menus and toolbars. Enter the following line into the Console Window and run it:. Acrobat will create a new, blank PDF document. This is perfect for trying out new ideas before applying them to a working document. The results of this operation are shown in Figure 7 below. Note that yet again, the result is something different.
The result shown in Figure 7 tells us the type of object created. This result is only useful in letting us know the function worked. If app. Both of these situations would have been displayed in the Console Window. The path property is exactly what you might think it should be.
