Integrate personalization variable data (VDP)/Mail Merge and Web-to-Print

Engage Connect

Engage Connect is part of the Engage family of products and is for use by web designers and software developers to integrate the Engage functionality into a web site to provide web-to-print and variable data printing / Mail Merge of pdfs. We can provide a service where we can
integrate Engage connect into your web site and/or train your designers on how to do this.

the Engage product family

We designed Engage to integrate seamlessly into existing workflows, or you can use it to develop and complete a Web to Print solution. It also enables you to replicate Engage Variable Data Printing’s VDP and Mail Merge of pdfs functionality within a web environment. The .NET framework underpins Engage, making it ideal for operation on Microsoft Windows Server-based platforms.

You can achieve highly complex workflows using the base SDK.

Engage Connect employs the Adobe® PDF library as its foundation, ensuring the PDF files you work with maintain their integrity. This approach also guarantees support for new features as the PDF standard evolves and as new versions of Acrobat release. Similarly, the Adobe® CC Suite products rely on the PDF library to save or export PDF files, and Adobe® Acrobat® and Adobe® Reader utilize this library as their engine.

The Engage Connect workflow for web to print and variable data printing:

engage sdk variable data printing and mail merge of pdf

The process:

  1. Pull PDF files into Acrobat and create variable fields in the PDF file using the Engage Acrobat plug-in. For more information on the plug-in please see the Engage Designer
    Acrobat plug-in User Guide    .
  2. The template is uploaded to the server.
  3. The file is processed according to settings in the template and interactions with the user.
  4. The PDF file(s) are put into a folder (usually a printer hot folder) where they can be printed.

Beyond this simple workflow Engage Connect is highly configurable. Other possible variations from this simple workflow might be:

Adding Additional Features

  1. A web to print mode where web user is asked for various options such as typing in some text, selecting from a library or small selection of images and possibly selecting from a range of colours and fonts.
  2. A preview mode where thumbnails or higher resolution previews show the user how the final output will look.
  3. A batch run using a database containing data that needs to be merged with the template. This is often called Variable Data Printing or mail merge of pdfs.
  4. Creating website forms from the XML generated from the PDF template.
  5. Inputing data to the template via the XML or directly, that changes the output when the internal Engage JavaScripts are run.

It is impossible to list all the possible uses for the system, but for detailed documentation please contact us for more information at this email address

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