Copy and paste multiple entries at once

[UnidentifiedFlyingData]

Hello everyone,

I have a pdf fillable form that I've used to create a couple hundred documents. I am now updating that form with different layout and content, and need to recreate those documents using the new form. Some of the data on the existing documents like the fields for name and ID numbers will be used; other fields are unnecessary data I will not need to copy over. All in all I have about 15 to 20 fields to move per form and would really prefer not to have to manually copy/paste 20 fields between documents over 200 times. Is there a way to automate this, like with a script or plug in? Or failing that, a way to copy and paste multiple fields at once? I've played around with exporting and importing and that doesn't seem to do the trick.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

If the layout of all new documents is the same, you can use the "replace pages" function to change the static PDF "behind" the form: The basic process is as follows

- edit one of your documents and change the form fields so that thaty match the new layout. Save this document as e.g. template.pdf

- Load the file template.pdf

- open the thumbnail pane for the document, right-click on a page and select to "Replace Pages". 

- select to replace the page(s) with the page(s) from the first document you want to modify.

- save the document under the filename that is appropriate for the new content 

If this works doing this manually, you can now move on to automate this. The key is the Doc.replacePages() JavaScript function: https://opensource.adobe.com/dc-acrobat-sdk-docs/acrobatsdk/html2015/index.html#t=Acro12_MasterBook%...

[UnidentifiedFlyingData]

Thanks for the prompt reply and consideration.

Replace page is really close to what I am looking for but it doesn't quite work. The layouts between the two documents are very different, and it doesn't know how to deal with that. It ends up porting every field from the old sheet over to the new one, even if a field for that old data doesn't have anywhere to  be entered on the new sheet. I need it to be selective about only moving the data out of fields I specifiy into fields that are similarly named but not always exactly the same.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Don't use the old version of your form as th template: Prepare one of your new files with the correct layout for your new documents (you can use the replace page function to create a starting point, and then manually modify the fields so that they match the new layout). Once you have one new file correctly prepared, use that new file as the template. This should now match new new layout, and you can do this for the remaining new documents.