My kingdom for a basic dropdown list

Forum|Forum|7 years ago
October 5, 2018
2 replies
2675 views

It is inconceivable to me that, in this modern year of 2018, the world's premiere form creation software does not come with basic pre-populated U.S. State and Country dropdown lists. I have scoured every single Acrobat forum trying to figure out how to reliably produce these two universally-used dropdown lists, only to discover that apparently my choices are: (1) Manually enter all 50 states and god knows how many (100? 200?) world countries, literally one at a time, and just hope I don't make a freaking typo or forget something; (2) Become an expert in javascript coding (!!) and write a snippet that will pull the lists in...somehow...I'm not even sure how that works; or (3) Buy the script/text/whatever from the guy who pops up on every thread trying to cash in on this basic need. I'm exhausted at this point and ready to give up. What am I missing here? Why is this so comically, ridiculously complicated? Help...just anyone...please help.

PDF forms

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G

gkaiseril

Inspiring

See Formrouter.net for some free form tools that can add dropdown list of states.

PDF Form Validation|Advanced Acroform Toolset|PDF Calendar|PDF File Upload|Required Dropdown

There some options to consider on this form field.

Display the full name but output the U.S. Postal 2 character code.ou out

Display the full name and output the full name.

Display the 2 letter code and output the full name.

Display the 2 letter code and output the 2 letter code.

The free documentation shows how to set the setItems method to set the display and optional value.

try67

Community Expert

I actually created such a list and am offering it for free on my website, but you seem to not like that I do that, so I won't bother you...

inhousecreativeAuthor

Participating Frequently

Well, fancy meeting you here! LOL. Look, I certainly don't think there's anything wrong with earning money by fulfilling a need, it's what we all do. The point of my comment was directed at Adobe, not you, so please don't take offense. I really just don't want to give out my email address in order to 'sign up' for any more unsolicited emails, which is required to download your state/country list files. Again, nothing wrong with that, I'm just bombarded with that kind of thing too much already. Also, the free version of the script you offer is only a demo, the full version requires payment. Anyway, all of this wrangling shouldn't even be required! These lists are such a basic function of form creation, I can't believe they aren't built-in. That was my whole point.

try67

Community Expert

- I never send any unsolicited mail.

- You can leave a fake email address for all I care.

- The demo version of the script contains a fully functioning PDF file with a drop-down that has all the US states in it, which you can copy and freely use. A countries list is trickier as it can change quite frequently and there are several political and cultural issues involved in producing it. My tool allow you to convert a simple list of countries to a drop-down field with ease.

- You start by saying "my kingdom for a basic dropdown list", but then are not willing to pay a small fee for a tool that allows you to do it...

- Adobe is not likely to offer such a thing. They provide you the tools to create it yourself, or have someone else do it for you, as I'm doing.

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