How do I clear a radio button?

[Guest]

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!

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Editing the form to clear a radio button group is very inefficient--also, not everyone has the ability to edit the form. 

You can easily make a button to clear JUST the radio group OR you can use pseudo radio buttons. See my post from Sep. 05, 2023.

[Donna34126501flci]

+100 on the fact that this it's ridiculous to not have this ability. (And it would help if Adobe realized not all of us are InDesigners or coders.)

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

Using pseudo radio buttons is super easy and solves the problem of deselecting all choices. 

[Chelsea354390214s7r]

I think the simplest way to correct this and reset all radio buttons back to empty is to prepare form -> click one of the radio buttons that already exists in the group, copy it, paste it, and then exit prepare form. Check that radio button and it will be selected. Then prepare form-> delete that one radio button. All are now empty!

[try67]

That's probably the most difficult way of doing it...

[try67]

I think you understand now what I meant... If not, see bebarth's code below.

[Canaryinthecoalmine]

Ctr+z works.

[try67]

Only if used immediately. If you save the file, close it, and then re-open it, for example, it doesn't work.

[Fernando38967123eazq]

Form is on the screen

Click on the menu, choose All tools - prepare form

On the form select (click and drag) the radio buttons you want to clear

Click on the 3 dots in the field pane (top right hand side)

Choose clear form

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

To all the Prepare Form>Clear Form suggestions...

This is NOT something the end user is going to do as it requires Acrobat Pro or Standard. 

Also, the OP stated they DON'T want to clear the form and start over again. 

The easist way, without code, is to use check boxes but name them like you would a radio button. 

Attached is a sample of radio and checkbox options--look at the last one on the page. That sample operates just like a radio button but allows the end user to deselect. 

(As a side note, when I use radio buttons, I include a 'No Answer' option. That way, you know the end user is purposely not answering the question and did not accidently skip over it.)