Can you select all of your form fields and set the properties all at once?

[joycreative]

Hi, is there a way to select all form fields when preparing a form and set their properties all at once? Like same font, font size etc. Or does each field have to be done individually? I've tried selecting all and setting the properties all at once but some format correctly and other don't. Thanks.

[Thom Parker · Accepted solution]

The common widget properties (essentially the appearance) can be set for all selected fields. Other properties are different for different field types and/or are meant to be unique  to a field type, and have to be set for only that field type or the specific field. 

[Thom Parker · Accepted solution]

The properties you mentioned are not widget properties, and so they need to be set individually.

There is another way to go about this process, which is to setup the field defaults before adding all the fields. So they are created (mostly) with the properties you want.

[Dave__M]

I just tried to format multiple form fields at once by selecting the fields, right-clicking and choosing Properties, made my choices... and all fields were successfully formatted identically. Can you describe your process?  I'll try to reproduce your process to see how if turns out, but I was able to do it with my sample form.

Dave

[joycreative]

Thank you for your response. Yes I did that same process but when I would select all and right-click Properties, some of the boxes unded the Options tab (particularly Check spelling, Multi-line, Scroll long text) would be grayed out at times. Also sometimes all of them would be grayed out but only "Comb of" would be checked, but that was grayed out as well to where I couldn't make any changes at all. I think it may have something to do with me needing to manually add text fields to the PDF when they weren't automatically created, not sure.

I was able to make the form fillable though—probably took longer than it should have but all of the fields are formatted correctly now. Thank you so much!

[Thom Parker · Accepted solution]

The properties you mentioned are not widget properties, and so they need to be set individually.

There is another way to go about this process, which is to setup the field defaults before adding all the fields. So they are created (mostly) with the properties you want.

[joycreative]

Got it, thanks. The form was about 20 pages with about 10 fields on every other page so this would really come in handy to know for next time. Would setting up the field defaults be achieved via scripts? I checked Acrobat Pro > Preferences but didn't see anything.

[try67]

No, you can't change the defaults with a script, but you don't need to. You only need to do it once.

You can use a script to edit all the fields in the file in a single go, though.

[joycreative]

Got it, thank you.

[try67 · Accepted solution]

This is possible, actually, but you have to make sure you only select text fields.

[joycreative]

Yes I only selected the text fields (the ones that were automatically generated and the ones that I had to manually add) but sometimes the check boxes under the Options tab were grayed out. Of course when I selected each one individually it worked fine. May be a glitch?

[try67]

Did you untick all other boxes first? Only then will Comb become available.

[joycreative]

I see. I'm not sure exactly what Comb is/does but it was sometimes selected by default when I selected all fields and then tried to make adjustments in Properties.

[try67]

Sorry, I misread your request and thought you wanted to set that option... You'll need to disable it to set anything else in that dialog,

[joycreative]

No prob. I see, got it. Thanks!

[Thom Parker · Accepted solution]

The common widget properties (essentially the appearance) can be set for all selected fields. Other properties are different for different field types and/or are meant to be unique  to a field type, and have to be set for only that field type or the specific field. 

[joycreative]

Got it. I was able to complete the form and make it fillable. I'm sure it took longer than it should have. Thank you for the response!

[JR Boulay]

There are "mistakes" that you only make the first time, after that you go faster.