How do I clear a radio button?

[starre89661289]

Is it possible to deselect a choice in a radio button group on a fillable PDF? There are times a radio button choice may be selected accidentally. When this happens, the only choice one may have is to abandon the form they have been completing, and start from scratch in hopes the mistake is not made again. Our forms are very detailed and with multiple pages and combinations of drop downs, check boxes, radio buttons, text boxes, etc... with questions totaling well over 100.  You can imagine someone's frustration if they've completed over 100 questions and near the end of the form there's a radio button question they did not mean to answer... The radio buttons are used exclusively for one choice selections only, otherwise check boxes are used. I'm interested in any simple solutions. Maybe Adobe can come up with a solution. I don't understand why radio buttons don't function the same way as check boxes. If you click once, it's marked; if you click again, it clear. Any help is greatly appreciated. Detailed steps for the fix are also appreciated. Thanks!

[Minty VO]

Hi, 

You do not see this in the menu bar on the right? 

[Therese5FDC]

Is there a way to just clear one radio button instead of clearing the whole form?

[try67]

Only with a script. For example:

this.resetForm(["Radio1"]);

[Dale5EAF]

This is the elegant solution.

However, in the Prepare Form/Edit where I have selected the individual field that I need to clear, there is nowhere in the Properties Box to run the script -  this.resetForm(["Radio1"]);

I'm hoping you can point me in the right direction.

Many Thanks

[Lin Wong]

Hi Cheryl, 

It has now moved to:

Go to Prepare Form.

Next to the Fields section, select the three dots (…) button.

Clear Form.

[Lin Wong]

Thank you! this is super helpful. I am still looking at this function as of the end of 2023. 

As of today, Adobe Acrobat has been updated.

In case someone else looking, to find the 'Clear Form' button, go to Prepare Form, next to the Fields section, select three dots (...). Click 'Clear Form'.

[chrism3963680]

This is what should have been the correct answer, at least for people who are designing or editing a form and find themselves stuck with selected radio buttons. Thanks for the guidance.

[aaron2a]

Ideally they would just have a reset button or right click to clear it or a
hot key or literally anything at all.

[ElizabethLeJ]

Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!

[Marketing Team 2192 · Accepted solution]

Tools - Forms - Preapare Form - More Options - Clear Form.

This is just what i was looking for thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 🙂

[Linda_Bo]

Where do I find this option to clear forms in Acrobat Pro 2020?

[try67]

Should be under Tools - Prepare Form - More...

[Linda_Bo]

Thank you try67!  That worked.  🙂  I appreciate your quick response and help!!

[DaleValet]

In my opinion, this should be marked as the "Correct Answer". Thank you for the help!

[Creamer Training]

This is an old thread (and technique) but attached is a sample form showing your options.

[Machelle5D34]

I am working in Acrobat 9.5 Pro. It is not letting me name two different check-boxes the same name. Am I missing something?

[Joe Seven]

No, this is not the answer anyone wants or needs. And you are incorrect. The answer is: Go to Prepare Forms, then on the right-side tool bar, click "More Tools", then click "Clear Form". 

[Harry21767054e9qo]

Agreed. If someone is asking how to uncheck a radio button, clearly they're filling out a form, not creating one... so it's totally unhelpful to say "well just rewrite the form." Thank you for providing an actual solution.

[Cynthesize]

Does anyone else think that check boxes are ugly/messy and do not catch the eye like a radio button? I am making a Hazard assessment sheet where a user selects many things from a list. I wanted the form to have the clean look of a voting ballot with filled in boxes or circles. I do not believe in radio-button orthodoxy, after all it is just an empty circle that can get filled in!  Is it possible to change the ✓ symbol into something else?  Maybe a ■?  Maybe different checkbox "styles" could be incorporated into Adobe Acrobat forms? Free the radio-button from it's functional servitude by the form design cognoscente! Do you realize how many forums and blogs there are  that deal with engineering the radio-button to be used differently than the designers intended?!  Adobe allows you to have radio buttons that only have 1 in a group, so why not make them de-selectable? Thank you for listening to my rant. The sentence "This is the functional definition of radio-buttons" set me off! 

[Cynthesize]

Haha well I just found Check Box Style, I am happy, but I still like the radio-button style better! 🙂

[kathryne81844580]

Super! Brilliant. Thank you so much for this!

[fere5FC7]

In the case of ...

"There are times a radio button choice may be selected accidentally. When this happens, the only choice one may have is to abandon the form they have been completing...."

... then,  the  Edit / Undo action worked for me,

near the end of a long form, which I was about to abandon, after I searched for help, to no avail, and just before I clicked on "NO, do not save changes before closing "  ...

[LarsenLP]

This is actually a brilliant advice. Nice workaround!

[aaron2a]

So you accidentally clicked a button and saved your complete form.  We found a work-around to deal with this. Basically what you do is add a button to the form under the same group-> go to the preview -> Select the new button -> Sacrifice that button with the selection in it by deleting it.

[try67]

That's a very cumbersome way of solving this issue. You can just clear the form, or run this JavaScript code to clear this one field:

this.resetForm(["Radio1"]);

(replace "Radio1" with the actual field name, of course)