How do I create a smart pdf fillable form for mutliple years?

[Eileen285188965su3]

I have a fillable form that started as an Excel spreadsheet to collect monthly data for multiple trades.  The Excel spreadsheet looks like this.  I need to collect data for multiple years and do not want to just repeat the form over and over.

Carpenters        January   February  March  April  May   June    July   August  September   October   November  December

Iron Workers    January   February  March  April  May   June    July   August  September   October   November   December

Painters            January   February  March  April  May   June    July   August  September   October   November   December

I want to streamline the data entry by having a year drop down and have muliple fields on top of each other with different field names.  How do I do this?  Layers?  Javascript?

I have Acrobat Pro.  Is there a Acrobat Pro DC version - I see this referenced in some articles and find it confusing.

[ls_rbls]

Hi,

You may use a combination of Acrobat's built-in tools and JavaScript scripting.

If you don't mind sharing a screenshot of your current workflow it may help to visualize better what you need.

 But if you're trying to use an Microsoft Excel file as a text-delimitted file in order to populate the PDF field objects in a PDF document on Adobe Acrobat, you may need to outsource a paid-for solution or consult with a developer (specially if you're new to or have no experience whatsoever with Acrobat JavaScript, for example; it is not an easy task). 

[Eileen285188965su3]

I have included a screenshot.  No, I am not looking to use an Excel spreadsheet like a data/mail merge.

I need to create a smart pdf where a user can preform data entry.  Excel is great at this.  I was able to create a pdf file with data entry fields but it only fit one year of data on the screen at a time.  Can I add layers to make each year's data visible when the user selects a year from a drop down?  I don't see a layer capability in Acrobat.

I did see that I could hide/unhide fields on event.

[ls_rbls]

Excel is great at this. 

By @Eileen285188965su3

I know, I love Microsoft Excel.

A lot of users that I've helped before  with Microsoft Office applications expect to see Microsoft Office features in Adobe Acrobat Pro, but just like Microsoft Excel is specialized on electronic spreadsheets, Adobe Acrobat is a full-blown PDF editor and reader.

You won't see built-in features like Excel because that is not what Adobe Acrobat is designed to do. In addition, these two software use entirely different programming languages and application programming interfaces (APIs) for plug-ins (MS Excel = Visual Basic for Applications(VBA) / Adobe Acrobat = Acrobat JavaScript).

Nevertheless, when combining some of the built-in features with Acrobat JavaScript scripting it unleashes many possibilities.

What you are asking is not impossible to do, but it is also not a trivial task. In which case, it is better to outsource a developer or use a paid-for tool.

• "Can I add layers to make each year's data visible when the user selects a year from a drop down? I don't see a layer capability in Acrobat."

          Yes, layers are fully supported, in addition to spawning page templates too.

But depending on how big is your project this may be very advanced to replicate with JavaScript and it  gets tricky, specially if all of those cells need to be calculated or perform some sort of IF/ELSE nested functions.

I will post back with an example PDF of how I would do it.

There are many ways that you can achieve similar result in Acrobat, but meanwhile, can you describe in more detail what exactly are the monthly worksheets suppposed to do?  If all you need is a PDF for data entry, then this may be failry easy to reproduce.

[Eileen285188965su3]

Yes, the form itself is only for data entry.  I did find where I add layers so that part is fine.  I'm working on the Javascript to change the layer when the user selects a value from a drop down.

I working in construction so ultimately the form will be used in a BIM environment.  I am checking now if the BIM software supports Javascript.  I still need to learn Adobe Acrobat Pro fully.

Thanks for your help!

[ls_rbls]

Of course.

Just post back with more questions if you get stuck with the JavaScript integration.

I am still working on the example PDF so you can see other ways o working something out with similar results.