How do I place a simple javascript in the resulting PDF?

Question

I would like to use LaTeX to produce a PDF document with forms with the following features: -One or two user-modifiable text fields -One output text field -A "run" button that, when pressed, will take the first fields, run calculations on it using a javascript function, and put the result in the output field.

So what packages would I need (I presume insdljs, but would I need anything else), where can I get them, and what would be the actual program to put into LaTeX. Thanks.

See for example http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/7869/how-do-you-say-happy-new-year-with-latex — yannisl, Jun 21 '12 at 09:18
Pure opinion: I think this is the future of TeX and of interactive documents generally: http://www.luatex.org/ which is part of http://wiki.contextgarden.net/Main_Page You'll have to learn Lua, but if you can use Javascript you shouldn't have any problems porting over. You'll also have to allow some time to get your installation up and running. They have some samples on their site; interactive PDFs-- nothing too exciting--kind of like Powerpoints, but the possibilities for development are rich with Lua. — Wylie Кулик, Jun 21 '12 at 07:56
The one page is about LuaTeX, the engine and the other page is about ConTeXt, the "format". Surely ConTeXt has rich build in support for JavaScript and interactive documents. — topskip, Jun 21 '12 at 08:55
I'm in the process of learning ConTeXt today. The last few hours I was installing and configuring it. LuaTeX is embedded in my ConTeXt installation, and the ConTeXt installation is embedded in my TeXLive installation. Still there was some configuring to do, and I haven't done any LuaTeX yet- mostly I'm working on Hebrew support, which I have got working. Not sure about Javascript in ConTeXt in particular but: http://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/3080/what-is-the-best-way-to-insert-document-level-javascript-in-latex-documents is a good start — Wylie Кулик, Jun 21 '12 at 09:41

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited Jul 15 '17 at 15:54

Take a look a the AcroTeX Education Bundle. The eforms package therein provides commands for creating JavaScript forms. If you want to reuse JavaScript code from form element to element you can use the insdljs package as you know about.

There are a ton of examples with source code at the AEB site. Here's a short demo:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage[pdftex]{eforms}
\usepackage{insdljs}

\begin{insDLJS}{\jobname}{update the form}
function update() {
    var a = parseFloat(this.getField("A").value);
    var b = parseFloat(this.getField("B").value);
    this.getField("C").value = a*a+b;
}
\end{insDLJS}

\begin{document}
\begin{tabular}{rrr}
& $x$ & \textField{A}{1.5cm}{1.0cm} \\
& $y$ & \textField{B}{1.5cm}{1.0cm} \\
\pushButton[\CA{Calculate}\A{\JS{update();}}]{run}{1.5cm}{1.0cm}
& $x^2 + y$ & \textField{C}{1.5cm}{1.0cm}
\end{tabular}
\end{document}

Thanks, but while it seems to have a lot of advanced stuff, I can't find where (if anywhere) it describes how the basic syntax works for the button and text-field identification, which is really what I need. — Yitzhak Kornbluth, Jun 21 '12 at 00:11
I looked at the documentation there a bit more, and I think I found it. Thanks. — Yitzhak Kornbluth, Jun 21 '12 at 00:54

How do I place a simple javascript in the resulting PDF?

1 Answers1