Adobe Forms- Duplicating Textboxes

[siddiqui278198039te1]

Hello everyone,

Being a proficient knowledgable user of Adobe forms, there is one thing that I still have not figured out and need assistance with. I have to create textboxes multiple one for a document over 300 pages. If I create using the Duplicate forms option in Adobe Acrobat, the boxes are copied over to all the pages in one go, but then those boxes are not unique. That forces me to change the name of each box individually and for a 300 page document, that takes time.

Is there is a solution that can expedite the above task?

Thank you

[Nesa Nurani]

You can't rename fields with a script, but you can replace text fields with new fields in the same place and give those fields unique names using script, but if you have any formatting/scripts in old fields it will not copy to new fields.

[siddiqui278198039te1]

Yes, you are right however, that does still present me with the same problem.

Thanks though!

[Thom Parker]

It would be much easier to write a console script to create the fields using your own naming scheme. 

For example:

var oFld;
var rectField = [....];
var cBaseName = "MyField";
for(var i=0;i<this.numPages;i++)
{
   oFld = this.addField(cBaseName + i, "text",i, rectField );
   oFld.textFont = ...;
   oFld.textSize = ...;
   ... and whatever other properties need to be set...
}

[siddiqui278198039te1]

Hello Thom,

Thank you for your response. So, I am not too familiar with scripting and its usage. I can tell you that all I really need to do is to create a textbox  that should have multi-line text in it and thats basically it.This textbox should be located on the right side of the page, on each page of a 300 pg document with the same dimensions and those boxes should be unique. This will save me time to change the name of each box individually and for a 300 page document, that takes time.

Thanks in advance.

[Rob25956410ueg9]

You may want to take a look at...

https://www.try67.com/tool/easily-rename-pdf-fields

I haven't used this particular tool but have used many of try67's other PDF tools, defintely saves a ton of time.

[Thom Parker]

If you are in the development phase of creating the form. It is much better to use console scripts to create fields than to rename them.  The script I provided above will create all the fields with the require name and properties, and in the correct location in less then one second.   

Let me repeat that. The one small console script will create all the fields in this field set exactly the way you want in less than one second.  

You will need to spend a little bit of time getting the correct location and working out the field properties that will need to be set. But that's peanuts compare to the effort required to rename existing fields. 

To do this. Start by placing a field on the first page.  Name it "Text1" and put it in the position and set the properties the way you want. 

Next, run this code in the console window

this.getField("Text1") .rect

This give you the exact rectangle you'll need for the script. Next, look up the names of the properties the field needs in the Acrobat JavaScript reference:

https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/library/jsapiref/JS_API_AcroJS.html

Run code similar to the line above for any properties that you don't know the value of. Since you've already set it up in the field. The returned values will be the ones you want to use in the script.