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williamd65534289
Participant
February 21, 2018
Question

Forms

  • February 21, 2018
  • 1 reply
  • 237 views

I'm in the process of creating a production order form for a company. What I would like it to do is when they choose and item from a drop-down menu the rest of the form is created.

For example:

Let's say there is an order for a widget. They then choose widget from a drop-down menu. When that happens a table will appear that shows all the parts needed to create that particular widget. It would also show tables for all the building process steps involved in building that widget.

Is this possible?

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

G
George_Johnson
Inspiring
February 21, 2018

It's possible, but can be a bit complicated. PDF forms can have several types of dynamic behavior. Perhaps the simplest and most widely supported is showing and hiding fields. In your example, you could use JavaScript to show the relevant fields that were previously hidden. Read-only buttons can be used to contain the underlying content and provide a means for it to be dynamically shown/hidden. This approach can get unwieldy for anything even moderately complicated.

Another approach is to use templates. This involves setting up template pages that contain form fields. Template pages are nothing more than regular pages that have been give a (template) name, but they can also be hidden. You can create new pages based on a template page, and/or overlay the contents of a template on an existing page. Both processes are known as spawning a template. It's possible to move fields with JavaScript, so this approach allows for much more complicated dynamic behavior. New pages that have been added by spawning templates can be later deleted if needed, even in Reader. Templates are not supported by most non-Adobe PDF viewers, and by no mobile PDF viewers that I'm aware of. All this is controlled by JavaScript, so you'd have to learn how to use it with templates and forms.

Another option is to create a dynamic XFA form, which is what the software formerly known as LiveCycle Designer is used to create. Dynamic XFA PDF forms can add reflowable content on the fly and include text fields and tables that can grow and contract dynamically. The learning curve for creating such forms is steep and you'd have to purchase this additional software. I'm not aware of any non-Adobe PDF viewers that support dynamic XFA forms.

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