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Lauren25194034oake
Participant
November 20, 2023
Answered

Unable to delete form field

  • November 20, 2023
  • 2 replies
  • 4273 views

I'm editing/preparing a form and there are form fields that have no label and cannot be deleted. They do not show when printed but I just don't want them there. Screen clip of example below.

 

 

    Correct answer Thom Parker

    The internal form related structure of this PDF has been corrupted.  There's nothing you can do about it.  You'll need to start over with a clean PDF and copy over the fields that work. 

      

    2 replies

    try67
    Community Expert
    try67Community Expert
    Community Expert
    November 20, 2023

    I call these "ghost fields". The only way I found to remove them was to move them to an empty spot on the page and then use the Redaction tool to draw a square around them and redact them away.

    Thom Parker
    Community Expert
    Thom ParkerCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    November 22, 2023

    Clever soluition!! tricking Acrobat into deleting the ghost fields.

     

    The problem is that the widget annotations are in the Pages dictionary, but not in the document level AcroForm dictionary.  If you have PDF CanOpener, you can delete them directly out of the page dictionary. Or reconnect them by copying back to the AcroForm dictionary. But that can get tricky for fields with the same name or hierarchy. 

    The redaction solution works becuase the ghost fields are basically unhandled page annotations.

     

    I don't know why this happens, but I've seen it often enough to know that it is Acrobat that is doing it. I suspect it's a copy issue, i.e. Acrobat somehow misses that the widget annot is a form field and performs a regular page annoation copy rather than a form field copy.  

     

     

    Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
    S
    Sack Attack
    Participant
    October 12, 2024

    Adobe Acrobat is garbage. I've worked with this product for 27 years and every one of the version has bugs that is inherited from the beginning. I have had clients who save to encrypted PGP drives and their documents were corrupted. Word Excel and millions of other files were not corrupted. There are numerous clients whith Acrobat issues. Many open tickets with Acrobat with no resolution but to delete the corrupted docs and start over. 

      Thom Parker
      Community Expert
      Thom ParkerCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
      Community Expert
      November 20, 2023

      The internal form related structure of this PDF has been corrupted.  There's nothing you can do about it.  You'll need to start over with a clean PDF and copy over the fields that work. 

        

      Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
      L
      Lauren25194034oakeAuthor
      Participant
      November 20, 2023

      Whomp Whomp Whomp for me. Thanks so much for the response (even if it's what I was afraid of)! 

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