Copy and paste form fields between PDFs

[nexato]

I no more can copy and paste form fields from one pdf to another - why? Now I use the most recent version of Acrobat from the CC on my Mac and I'm no more able to paste fields into another PDF. This once worked fine - at least recently on windows I did this with the same files. Am I doing something wrong?

I have to republish an old PDF questionnaire with lots of new pages (first ca 50, now 76 pages). The basic layout for navigation and of some standard questions and buttons remained. It would be more than helpful to be able to simply paste them into the new qestionaire.

Thanks for your help!

[try67]

What happens when you attempt to do so?

[nexato]

Just nothing happens .. no reaction, no noticeable processing.

I meanwhile figured out that it might have something to do with that fact that I edited the new questionaire first with my windows - where it worked - and continuing my work on the Mac. Because i exported an all empty version of the new questionaire from InDesign and copying fields from the old to the new version suddenly worked. Maybe a Bug?

[try67]

Hard to say without seeing the files... Did you try the Replace Pages

command?

[Bernd Alheit]

Don't use Apple Preview.

[JR Boulay]

Don't use Apple Preview.

==> Preview.app - Killer of PDF Files - KHKonsulting LLC

==> http://www.appligent.com/pdf-readers-5-readers-compared/

[gkaiseril]

As noted, do not use Apple Preview! It will corrupt the fields so they do not display the entries into to the fields unless one is focused on a specific field and it may make the PDF unreadable.

Open the old form in Acrobat and make sure you are not in the PDF/A reading mode. Open the "Organize pages" tool and then use the "Replace pages" to remove the old form content with the newly created form content. All form actions, page actions, and document level JavaScripts and actions will be retained in the new copy of the form.

[nexato]

Thank you for the hint about Apple Preview. So far I haven't used it but now I know to definitely avoid it! I tried the organize pages tool and for some cases this will be helpful for my work.

It seems that form field copying basically works on Mac, If I don't change the file on my windows. Therefore I think my problem is solved. At least for my case and my workflow. 

[try67]

There's no reason it shouldn't work on a Windows machine just as it does on a Mac...

[nexato]

I agree with you. But anyway I had to test it because I came up with this idea. So I edited one copy of my questionaire on windows, afterwards I tested copying fields on Mac and everything worked fine. So there must have been a nother reason why it suddenly dind't work.

To again sum up what I did, to go on with my works: I exported an all new questionnaire file from InDesign, where I did the layout changes for it's newest version. Afterwards the reason that made copying form fields impossible disappeared so I could restart my work. I've never used Apple Preview so something else must have been the reason for this failure.

Sadly Im not able to reproduce the situation where the copying failed. Still this topic should kept up at least until I completed the questionaire.

[try67]

Copying can fail if you attempt to copy a field with a name that already exists in the target document, but it has a different type.

For example, if you try to copy a drop-down field called "Gender" but there's already a radio-button with that name in the file.

[jenniferw68733142]

Perfect!  Thank you

[DimitriM]

Hi pitchable,

If you just need to apply all the fields to a new page design you can use Replace Pages. If the layout is significantly different you may need to move some fields into place, but still faster than recreating them all.

Hope this helps,

Dimitri Munkirs

[JR Boulay]

When selecting fields, be sure to not select a comment nor a link object at the same time, this avoid copy-pasting to work.

[JR Boulay]

Tip: Press the shift key before doing : Edit menu : Paste

This will "paste in place".

But don't expect the shortcut shift-crtl-V (shift-cmd-V on MacOS) to do the same thing, since the engineers of Acrobat are UI and UX experts…

.

[nexato]

I think I now have new indications why the initial problem showed and and still shows up. I noticed on some pages - those where I couldn't copy fileds - there existed some fields located under the ones I wanted to copy and they were some kind of duplicates of them having the same name and size. They seemed like an exact duplicate except they didn't show up in the form field list on the right and they can't be deleted, copied or renamed but resized . So they doesn't really exist but they do somehow, maybe automatically created?

If these fields are within the fields you selected with the mouse (selection rectangle) all the fields are unable to being copied. If I chose the fields I want to copy form the list it works.

[try67]

Those are corrupt fields. You can remove them using the Redaction tool.

[nexato]

How do I do it? For me it looks like the Redaction tool only allows to delete all form fields or covered objects but not specific ones.

[try67]

It can delete any kind of content in the file. Select the tool, hold down Ctrl and then mark the area around these "ghost" fields. Apply the redaction and they will be gone, for good.

[JR Boulay]

I think I now have new indications why the initial problem showed and and still shows up.

I noticed another important thing yesterday: the Paste item is greyed out when a page thumbail is selected, as usual when you clic a thumbnail to go to another page after copying.

So you must clic on the page layout to be able to paste.

Ain't Acrobat's UI great?