Convert PDF forms to adaptive forms

On your AEM Forms instance, tap Adobe Experience Manager > Navigation > Forms > Forms & Documents.

Select a form or the folder containing PDF forms (forms to be converted) and tap Start Automated Conversion. The Conversion Settings dialog appears.

Convert PDFs to Adaptive Form Core Components

This feature is under the Early Adopter Program. You can write to aem-forms-ea@adobe.com from your official email id to join the early adopter program and request access to the capability.

The above conversion setting is required to convert PDF forms to foundation based forms. To convert a PDF form to a Core Components based adaptive form:

1. Ensure you have enabled Core Components on your AEM Forms instance. If it is not enabled, you can enable core components on your AEM 6.5 or Cloud Service environment.
2. Select a core components based adaptive form template and theme as shown in the image below:
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3. Tap Start Conversion to convert the PDF to a core components based form.

NOTE

• Properties such as data binding or data model schema are not available for core component based adaptive form but the same are available for foundation components.
• Review and correct the converted forms is not available for core components based form.

In the Basic tab of the Conversion Settings dialog:

• Select a cloud configuration. When you select a configuration, default template and theme are already specified. You can specify a different template or a theme, if required.
• Specify a location to save generated adaptive forms and corresponding schema. You can use default paths or specify custom paths.
• Use the Generate adaptive forms without data model bindings option to select if you want to generate an adaptive form with or without data model bindings.
  If you do not select this option, the conversion service automatically associates the adaptive forms with a JSON schema and creates a data binding between the fields available in the adaptive form and JSON schema. The Save generated data model schema at field displays the default location to save the generated JSON schema. You can also customize the location to save the generated schema.
  If you select this option, the conversion service generates an adaptive form without data model bindings. After a successful conversion, you can associate an adaptive form with a Form Data Model, XML schema, or a JSON schema. For more information, see Creating an adaptive form.

In the Additional tab of Conversion Settings dialog,

• Select the Extract fragment from adaptive forms option to allow the conversion service to identify, extract, and download form fragments for converted forms. When you select the Extract fragment from adaptive forms option, the options to specify paths for saving extracted form fragments and corresponding form fragments schemas is enabled.
• Specify the location of existing adaptive form fragments, if you have some existing JSON schema based and schema less adaptive form fragments and you plan to use these fragments in automatically generated adaptive forms. Conversion service matches available JSON schema based and schema less adaptive form fragments with input PDF Forms (non-interactive PDF Forms only), if there is a match, the matched adaptive form fragment is used in corresponding adaptive forms.

NOTE

• You can use only ** Extract Fragment** or Use existing adaptive form fragments option at a time. You cannot use both the options simultaneously.
• You can use the Use existing adaptive form fragments option only with non-interactive PDF Forms. Other form types are not supported yet.
• You can use only unbound fragments or fragments bound to a JSON schema with Automated Conversion Service. Do not use XFA fragments. XFA fragments are not supported.

• Select the Auto-detect multi-column layout of input forms option to retain the layout of the source form for large screens like desktops and laptops. The option is helpful in preserving the multi-column layout of source forms. For example, when a source PDF has a two-column layout, the service generates an output adaptive form with a two-column layout for large screen displays and single-column layout for small screen devices like mobile phones. The feature has some known issues with data source schema structure. For details, see the known-issues article.

• By default, the service creates a separate top-level panel for each page of a PDF form. Now, you can use the Auto-detect logical sections option to not create page level panels (page number-based panels) and create only logical panels. It also clubs the fields which do not belong to any section with preceding logical section and fields of a logical section spread across two adjacent pages into a single logical section. For example, if some fields of a logical section are at the end of page one and some are in the starting of page two, all such fields are clubbed into a single logical section.

  NOTE

  You require the connector package 1.1.38 or above to use the Auto-detect logical sections feature.

Tap Start Conversion. The Conversion is started. Conversion progress is displayed on the folder or the form until the conversion is in progress. The message is replaced another status message (Converted, Partially Converted, or Conversion Failed) after the conversion is complete. A status email is also sent on the configured email address on completion of conversion:

• On a successful conversion, the converted adaptive form and related schema are downloaded to the path specified in the Basic tab of the conversion dialog. Form fragments and corresponding schema are downloaded only if the Extract Fragment option is selected before starting the conversion.
• On a failed conversion, the Conversion Failed message is displayed if all the input forms fail to convert or the Partially Failed message is displayed when only a few of all the input forms fail to convert. A status email is sent on the configured email address and an error is logged to the error.log file.

If you are converting an XFA-based PDF form in to an adaptive form, the conversion service automatically associates the PDF form to the converted adaptive form as the Document of Record template. After conversion, you can open the adaptive form properties to view the Document of Record template in the Document of Record Template Configuration section of Form Model tab.

The conversion service automatically uploads the PDF form to the converted adaptive form as the Document of Record template only if you enable the Tools > Cloud Services > Automated Forms Conversion Configuration > Properties of selected configuration > Advanced > Generate Document of Record option.

NOTE

If the conversion process takes more than 60 minutes and the PDF form is still not converted to an adaptive form, create a folder on AEM Forms instance, upload the PDF form to the newly created folder, and restart the conversion.