How to change font size in fillable forms in the form fill fields?

Report · Jun 11, 2019

I am in Acrobat Pro 2017

I have forms I have to fill out from different schools and organizations to register our officers. Sometimes the fillable fields change font size as the text I enter fills the box. But sometimes the font size doesn't change. Also, sometimes it doesn't change systematically. So for example: I have 3 phone number fields. I've entered 3 different phone numbers in the exact same format. But each of these fields end up being a different size. I am trying to edit the text I enter in the fillable fields but I can't figure out how to do that. I read in a comment from a year ago that said to go to edit form and right click on a form field. All that did was allow me to edit the existing form fields not the fillable form fields.

I also would like to ask if there is a way to have certain form fill fields be saved while still having certain form fill fields that I can fill out each time I enter a new officer. I'd like to not have to fill out the same info in certain fields each time I have to fill out a form.

Thanks

Report · Jun 11, 2019

Question:

Are you creating the form, or filling in an existing form?

Report · Jun 13, 2019

Thanks, Bevi,

I am just filling in an existing form.

Pat

Report · Jun 13, 2019

I saw another post that asked the same question. The original questioner and I never could find the same options the people that were trying to help us were talking about in order to change the font size. I finally figured out why and tried to reply to post that and for some reason it wouldn't let me post to that thread. I don't know why. But I thought I would put in here what I learned to help others. I also, ended up having more questions about the tabs in the form not working right and my getting duplicate ghosting in my "fillable fields" that I had entered text into and then hit my tab button. So I hope what I paste here will help others and I hope someone can help me with my questions. Thanks!

<<<

This thread is probably too old for anyone to respond to me but I have the same problem with wanting to change the font size in the "fillable" form fields. I did not make this form. I have 3 different phone number fields. Each field has a different font size. Some of the other "fillable" form fields have a large font size but that doesn't look right. The original person,amyv56089147, who started this thread couldn't even fit all of the text she was writing into one of their "Fillable" form fields.

I want to thank everyone for trying to help but somehow what y'all are saying to do, didn't work for amyv56089147 and it doesn't work for me.

Whoa! I think I just figured out why amyv56089147 , I and others couldn't see what y'all are telling us should be showing when we right click on one of the "Fillable" form fields. And why y'all that are helping us don't see what we see. I have been working on a form that I have already put info in the "fillable" form fields. I decided to open the original form without me entering info yet. I went to "Prepare Form". All of a sudden all of the "fillable" form fields have the field label in the fields. When I now right click on a "fillable" field, I get what y'all keep telling us we should see. So I click on "properties" then "appearance" and voila "Font Size". In the form the fields are all set to auto. The reason those 3 phone number fields have 3 different font sizes is that whoever wrote the form, made different field sizes so that would cause the font size to change according to the field size. I am going to try and make all 3 of those fields be the same size and not auto. That will correct that problem.

I'm very excited to find this out. What I would love help for is when there is a large field size, is there any way to maybe restrict the maximum size the font could be. I'm just thinking that for ex: I get these forms I have to fill out from different schools and police department where I have to fill in our officer's info to register them for a course. The "Course Title" field is very large. Most courses don't need that big of a field. So when I put in the title, the font size is huge. But a few Course Titles might need the auto sizing in order to fit into the field. I doubt if this is possible, but I thought I'd at least ask. Also, I wonder why I can't adjust the size of the "Fillable" form fields if I already have info in them? Well, I think I figured that as long as I start in the Prepare Form, I can go back and forth to the document to fill out the form.

I'm sorry this is so long. I have found that in the date fields, they don't tab to the next field even though in the Prepare Form view they are in the right order on the right and when I click on the sort arrow it is to be sorted by tab. What I found is that when I entered a number in the month field and hit tab, it not only went to the wrong field, but the number ended up being in duplicate with a shadow.

In the "Fields" list on the right it lists the date fields as:

MM3#0

DD3#0

YYYY3

Salary Incentive

MM4#0

DD4#0

YYYY4

That is the correct order but when I go back to the document view the MM3#0 tabs to MM4#0, then the tab goes to DD4#0, then tab goes to DD3#0, then the tab goes to the beginning of the form at the Officer's Last Name. I went to the Prepare Form and clicked on "More > show tab numbers" and even the tab numbers don't follow either the correct tab order that is listed above, nor the tab direction when in the document view. Does anyone know what is wrong and how I can fix this. I am finding some of my text in several fields are now have duplicate ghosting going on. I have noticed when I click in Prepare Form > Fields I have the options of ordering tabs by structure, row, column, manually (this is checked), or unspecified. When I looked at all the fields listed on the right, I notice there is a:

Officer Name #0

Officer Name #1

Agency Name 1#0

Agency Name 1#1

Course Title#0

Course Title#1

MM3#0

MM3#1

MM4#0

MM4#1

DD4#0

DD4#1

They all highlight the same field. For ex: both Officer Name #0 and #1 highlights the same cell, the Agency Name 1#0 and Agency Name 1#1 highlights the same field, etc..

Well, I think this is much longer than I expected. But I love that I figured out how to get where y'all were talking about in order to change the font size. I put all this in also to help others with the same problem.

Thanks for everyone's help!

>>>

Report · Jun 13, 2019

cricket1001 wrote
When I now right click on a "fillable" field, I get what y'all keep telling us we should see. So I click on "properties" then "appearance" and voila "Font Size". In the form the fields are all set to auto. The reason those 3 phone number fields have 3 different font sizes is that whoever wrote the form, made different field sizes so that would cause the font size to change according to the field size. I am going to try and make all 3 of those fields be the same size and not auto. That will correct that problem.

Everything you talk about in this post is controlled by the form creator, not you.

Recommendation: don't waste your time on this. It's pretty obvious that whoever made the form and wants your form data doesn't give a rat's patootie about whether the phone numbers look the same or the various fonts/sizes used in the form fields.

They really just want the data, not the formatting of the data.

So do other more important things than this!

That said, whoever created the forms needs to take a good class in how to make PDF forms where they would learn about controlling the formatting of the data in the form fields.

Report · Jun 13, 2019

cricket1001 wrote
Thanks, Bevi,
I am just filling in an existing form.
Pat

Pat, the control of fonts is done by the form 's creator, not the end-user who fills out the form.

No wonder you were confused!

Report · Jun 13, 2019

Bevi,

But I was able to change the font size in the "fillable" form fields. I just have to start with the form in Prepare Form view. I was able to change all the font sizes to 10 which so far is working perfectly.

I also figured out what to do about the tabs that weren't working right. The form had more or less duplicate fields at the end of the Fields List. (As you can read below.) I took out the duplicate fields at the bottom of the list, Officer Name #1, Agency Name 1#1, Course Title#1, MM3#1, MM4#1 and DD4#1. This put all the tabs in their correct order and numbered them all in the correct order. This also took away all "duplicate ghosting" I had in some of the fields. Now I am going to try and reduce the height of the "fillable" form fields because the text I type ends up too high. Thanks!

That is the correct order but when I go back to the document view the MM3#0 tabs to MM4#0, then the tab goes to DD4#0, then tab goes to DD3#0, then the tab goes to the beginning of the form at the Officer's Last Name. I went to the Prepare Form and clicked on "More > show tab numbers" and even the tab numbers don't follow either the correct tab order that is listed above, nor the tab direction when in the document view. Does anyone know what is wrong and how I can fix this. I am finding some of my text in several fields are now have duplicate ghosting going on. I have noticed when I click in Prepare Form > Fields I have the options of ordering tabs by structure, row, column, manually (this is checked), or unspecified. When I looked at all the fields listed on the right, I notice there is a:

Officer Name #0

Officer Name #1

Agency Name 1#0

Agency Name 1#1

Course Title#0

Course Title#1

MM3#0

MM3#1

MM4#0

MM4#1

DD4#0

DD4#1

Report · Jun 13, 2019

Pat, for some reason you were able to enter into Forms Editing mode, which lets you pretend you're the form creator. Most forms are locked and end users can't (and shouldn't be able to) be able to change the formatting of the form fields.

If I were in your shoes, I would not spend time doing this; it is pointless and has no bearing on the actual data you're typing into the field, which is what the form's creator wants. Data, not formatting.

Report · Jun 13, 2019

Bevi,

Do you know how I can make the text in the "fillable" fields to aligned at the bottom of the box instead of the middle of the box? I tried changing the box size but that didn't seem to help. I'd like all the text in all of the "fillable" form fields be left and bottom aligned. When I right click in a field box, I see "Align, Distribute or Center. I click on the arrow for that selection and there is listed "Align Bottom" but that is greyed out and I can't use it. I tried clicking on "Center Vertically" which isn't greyed out, that moved the box down to the center of the page. So those options would only move and align the box on the whole page. I need a way to align the text in the box to be left and bottom aligned. I don't see that option anywhere. Thanks.

Report · Jun 13, 2019

Sorry, you must have posted that reply while I was typing and didn't see it until after my last post. You're right, this is probably pointless. I just thought it would look nicer. But I've wasted too much time on this. Thanks!

Report · Mar 13, 2025

I think I figured it out! Finally! I converted to a Word.docx, changed format and then coverted back to PDF!

Report · Jun 13, 2019

It really sounds like whoever created these forms didn't get good enough training in forms design.

It's an art and craft. They definitely missed it on the forms you're describing!