¶ Adding Variable Data PDFlib Blocks
The Design Online process begins with a PDF file. To this original PDF, you will then add placeholders that will contain the variable data entered by your customers. The placeholders are called "blocks" and are added to the original PDF using the PDFlib Blocks plugin for Acrobat Professional.
In some case, the Blocks you add to the original PDF are intended to contain new text and images that are not in the original PDF. In other cases, the new text and images entered by the customer is intended to replace existing text or images in the original PDF. In this second case, it is important to remember to remove the original text or images from the original PDF.
This video illustrates using the PDFlib Blocks plugin to add blocks to a PDF:
¶ Removing existing text in PDF
In those areas where you have created a new PDFlib block, the Deisgner will place new text or images into the PDF. It is important to remember that you will need to remove any text that is built-in to the original PDF. If not, the Designer will place the text user types on top of the original text in the PDF.
You can remove this native content by either using the TouchUp Text
Tool or the TouchUp Object Tool in Acrobat. Both of these are found under Tools
> Advanced Editing.
In Acrobat X the TouchUp Text Tool is called Edit Document Text and it can be found under Tools > Content > Edit Document Text. In Acrobat X the TouchUp Object Tool is called Edit Object and it can be found under Tools > Content > Edit Object Tool.
In Acrobat XI you can try the Edit Text & Images Tool, found under Tools > Content Editing > Edit Text & Images.
In Acrobat DC, you must use the "Edit PDF" tool in the right-hand column. This tutorial provides a good illustration.
Once you have removed the original content from the PDF, you will need to enable the PDFlib Block Tool to see the blocks that are in the document. Text blocks are represented by a pink tag. Image blocks are represented by a green tag. This file is now ready for upload.
