Help: Multi-line Text field changes position when filling out form in Acrobat vs Chrome or Edge

Question

I'm creating a form that will need to be printed or filled out digitally. There are a number of fields that will require multi-line text. I've adjusted the document's guide-lines using Indesign to accomodate the default linespacing of Acrobat for Helvetica pt.11.

When filling the form digitally using Acrobat the text appears spot-on the guide-lines. However, when filling the form digitally using a browser (I've tested both Chrome and Edge) the text appears well above the guide-lines. If I nudge the text fields down so that they fit in browsers, they no longer fit in Acrobat.

Most end-users will be downloading the PDF and are likely to fill it out in whatever default PDF viewer they have. So I'd like for the form to be as universally functional as possible.

Any thoughts on how to rectify this issue? Thank you!

Dov Isaacs · Answer

Regrettably, many non-Adobe viewers don't fully or properly implement the PDF specification or even attempt to assure that their viewers reasonably emulate Adobe's implementation (when the specification might not be that clear).

Furthermore, some PDF viewers, such as Apple's Preview are known to corrupt PDF forms.

There is no simple solution to this other than to clearly advise recipients of your PDF forms that the forms were designed to be opened and completed using either the free Adobe Acrobat Reader or Adobe Acrobat.

(FWIW, a few years back, I was teaching a graphics arts course in which the examinations which required some long free-form text responses were PDF-forms based. I warned the students of this problem and advised them to use Adobe Acrobat Reader if they didn't have Adobe Acrobat installed – as graphic arts students, they were expected to have such software installed on their computers. I would not grade the examination of any student who turned in a MacOS Preview-corrupted PDF form. Needless to say, a few students didn't heed the instructions and flunked!)

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