Forms in Acrobat - anyone?

[john dough]

I am about to start this project to format 600 fields and there has to be a way to format them all with the same characteristics. Doing each one by hand will take all day.

Anyone have a clue? I googled but found nothing so far...

[macbeergeek]

Format the first one, then Copy then Paste 599 times.

[JoeM]

What Acrobat do you have? You should be able to do it in Acrobat 8 Pro through Acrobat LifeCycle Designer which is part of it.

[tuqqer]

[quote macbeergeek]Format the first one, then Copy then Paste 599 times.
I'm not positive, but I do think each field then needs to be renamed a separate name. I've been creating a variety of digital PDF forms over the past month, and that's what it seems like you have to do. If any of the fields have the same name, they don't work as you want them to.

I'm also interested in this question...

[bazookaman]

I believe tuqqer is right. I had to do a bunch of fields once (not 600) but enough to make me think to copy/paste. none of them worked until I named them individually.

[macbeergeek]

[quote bazookaman]I believe tuqqer is right. I had to do a bunch of fields once (not 600) but enough to make me think to copy/paste. none of them worked until I named them individually.
Depends on what kinds of fields they are and how they'll be used. If you're going to be collecting data from the fields, then yes, they definitely all need to have unique names (think about them like database fields). Unfortunately I've never seen any automated process that will duplicate and rename Acrobat form fields. I don't have Acrobat 8 so I can't speak to it's features. On the other hand Adobe has dramatically changed the forms functionality with each new version, so who knows. Also, I think the form-building tools are different between Mac and Win versions of Acrobat.

[tuqqer]

Since we're on the topic: has anyone figured out a way to change, say, the text, in the underlying doc a formed-up PDF without having to go through the whole setting-up-text-fields again?

In other words, if you create a PDF and then use Acrobat to make it a digitally fillable doc, and you suddenly notice a typo in the text, or need to add new info, you have to completely redo the whole thing. At least I haven't figured out a way to do it otherwise.

[JoeM]

[quote tuqqer]Since we're on the topic: has anyone figured out a way to change, say, the text, in the underlying doc a formed-up PDF without having to go through the whole setting-up-text-fields again?

In other words, if you create a PDF and then use Acrobat to make it a digitally fillable doc, and you suddenly notice a typo in the text, or need to add new info, you have to completely redo the whole thing. At least I haven't figured out a way to do it otherwise.
You guys should be looking at Acrobat 8 Pro like I mentioned above. LifeCycle Designer can probably do a lot of what you want. It's still a bit buggy but I think it will give you the most flexibility for PDF form design and editing.

[tuqqer]

Joe, I'm using Acrobat 8 Pro. Are you saying there's a way to change the underlying doc's text/images without losing all of the text fields?

[JoeM]

Not sure about images but I believe there are a couple of ways to change fonts In LifeCycle. Select whatever you want to replace and then use the font palette under windows to select a new font.

A more indirect way is to temporarily remove the font you want to replace from your system and then launch LifeCycle. It will tell you the font is missing and allow you to substitute another font. You need to Save As and select the permanently replace font option.