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Participant
April 10, 2018
Question

Form created in InDesign with strikethrough text, behaves oddly in Acrobat

  • April 10, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 2022 views

I've created a variety of forms in InDesign, and one of the features needed on the PDF is the ability to cross out certain bits of text ('Delete as appropriate', etc). I've done this using checkboxes and radioboxes in InDesign, replacing the check with a line in the on/off state, as shown:

This is technically functioning in Acrobat/Reader - however, if Highlight Fields is turned on (which ideally it needs to be, as there's a lot to fill out), Acrobat is showing a picture of a checkbox instead of a line as soon as the user has clicked away from it. In the image below, I have clicked on 'sufficient' to cross it out, then clicked on 'not sufficient' - you can see the 'sufficient' line has been replaced with a tick. This is particularly confusing as it might imply to a user that they are selecting that option, rather than crossing it out.

Is there any way to stop Acrobat from doing this? (Preferably using InDesign – these forms are updated frequently, so any changes made in Acrobat would need to be replicated every time it was updated, which I don't have capacity to do. This is why I make the form fields in InDesign and not Acrobat.)

Thanks in advance!

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1 reply

Legend
April 10, 2018

Well, there is no such thing in PDF forms as a strikethrough style. It has to be done with graphics. I suspect InDesign has overreached itself here, and created an impossible form.

Participant
April 11, 2018

Oh, to clarify, none of this has been done with an actual strikethrough text style. The line in the example above is a standalone line which has been pasted into the 'on' state of the checkbox, replacing the check.

To reiterate, it does work fine in Acrobat IF form highlighting is turned off. If form highlighting is turned on, then Acrobat replaces my line with its own checkbox graphic, which is what I'd like to avoid.

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
April 11, 2018

It's probably not possible. Acrobat and InDesign don't play nicely together when it comes to form fields.