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Mat142857
Mat142857
Participant
May 28, 2026
Question

Acrobat Pro 2024 (Claasic): Text Boxes under Prepare Form Keep Actively Creating

  • May 28, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 15 views

I’ve recently purchased Acrobat Pro 2024 (a.k.a. Acrobat Classic). Under “Prepare Form,” after creating a text box with a mouse click, each subsequent click anywhere on the page will create a new text box. I can end this cycle only by pressing Esc twice. Is this a feature or a bug? That was not the behavior in older Acrobat Pro’s that I had had.

    1 reply

    Amal Jaiswal
    Community Manager
    Amal JaiswalCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    May 28, 2026

    Hi there,
     

    Hope you are doing well and thanks for reaching out.
     

    What you're seeing is the intended behavior, not a bug.
     

    When you select a field type in Prepare Form (Text Field, Check Box, etc.), Acrobat keeps that tool "armed" so you can rapidly place multiple instances of the same field without having to reselect the tool every time. It's designed for forms where you're laying down a column of identical fields in a row.
     

    There are a few ways to exit that mode:

    • Press Esc once: this should release the tool and return you to the normal selection arrow. If you're finding it takes two presses, the first Esc is likely just dismissing focus on the field you just created, and the second exits the placement mode.
    • Click the selection arrow / cursor icon in the Prepare Form toolbar to manually switch back to selection mode.
    • Click a different tool in the toolbar, which also cancels the current one.

    If you only ever want to place one field at a time, the cleanest habit is to tap Esc immediately after each placement, or click the arrow tool in the toolbar between placements.


    Hope that helps.

     

    ~Amal

    Mat142857
    Mat142857Author
    Participant
    May 29, 2026

    Thank you for the quick response. In the first way to exit that you describe, it is the latter of the two options. Pressing Esc once indeed dismisses the focus from the current field but does not return me to normal selection arrow. I think that a similar question was posted a year ago under the title “Acrobat Pro 2024-002-20895 Text Boxes Keep Actively Creating”.

    Amal Jaiswal
    Community Manager
    Amal JaiswalCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    May 29, 2026

    Hi there,
     

    This is actually intentional behavior,  it's called "sticky tool" or persistent mode in Acrobat's Prepare Form. When you add a form field, the tool stays active so you can quickly place multiple fields of the same type without having to re-select the tool each time. Adobe introduced this in more recent versions to speed up form building workflows.
     

    To exit the tool after placing a field, you have a couple of options:
    - Press Esc (you may need to press it twice — once to deselect the field, once to exit the tool)
    - Click the cursor/arrow (Select) tool in the toolbar
    - Press the keyboard shortcut for the Select tool (usually F2 or clicking the pointer icon)


    Regards
    Amal

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