How to turn OFF Acrobat from auto creating and moving text in text fields in Edit mode?

Forum|Forum|4 years ago
March 3, 2021
5 replies
5426 views

Acrobat apparently can be very frustrating! Are there settings so that when I create a text box with text and insert Form Fields into the text in that text field, Adobe will NOT create it's own text box fields and move text into them and out of the text fields I created?

Basically, I'll copy and paste a paragraph into a text field in Acrobat. I need to then insert form fields into that paragraph in a few places (this is a PoA legal document). However, after I've spent the time to format and align everything, Acrobat then takes the text before and after the inserted form fields and puts it in their own text boxes. Thus, effectively changing what I've created.

Is there a way to turn off this feature so it keeps my text boxes, etc. in place?

Any assistance is appreciated.

This topic has been closed for replies.

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Ullas33281483cgyu

Participant

I have a problem which is similar. I am rying to create a resume and I create text boxes, put in the contents I want and save the file. Later I sometimes want to edit the copntents, but when I open the file I find that Acrobat has decided to change these boxes to include text from other boxes...and this is an ever changing behaviour.

Why does it keep doing this? A user doesnt want it so what exactly is the purpose here? What was Acrobat made for?

Supposing I buy the argument posed in this thread here that "Acrobat was not made for this", then for whatever reason it was made for, how does randomly creating text boxes align with the reasons it was created for?

try67

Community Expert

There are no such "text boxes" in a PDF file. Acrobat does its best to combine streams of text together so that you could make some edits to them, but these "structures" don't really exist in the file. Therefore, this process is never going to be perfect.

If you want to make changes to the underlying contents of the file you should do so in the original file format (Word, InDesign, text file, HTML, etc.) and then create a new PDF from it.

Acrobat is meant for that: Creating new PDF files from various formats and then editing them in other ways, such as adding form fields, links, comments, preparing them for printing (using the Preflight tool), adding or deleting pages, etc. It's NOT a word-processing application, though, although it has some basic editing functionalities.

M

Mandee5FBBAuthor

Participant

Thanks everyone. I actually am opening Word Docs previously created into Acrobat as a few have mentioned. However, it isn't making much of a difference in regard to the amount of extra manual edits, moves, alignments, etc. Yes, a high degree of patience is needed especially if the text and similar needs to be edited or updated in some way.

Again, thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

try67 is right. Using Acrobat Pro like this requires a lot of patience and it is not very productive because it is not made for it.

You should create your forms with InDesign, Word, Scribus, LibreOffice, etc. and export to PDF.

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

try67

Community Expert

The issue is you're using Acrobat in a way it was never meant to be used. Acrobat is NOT a word processing application, and editing the static contents of a PDF file should only be attempted if there's absolutely no other option, and only for minor changes. The kind of changes you're trying to do should be done in the original file and then a new PDF file should be created from it. Doing it in Acrobat is a bad idea, even if its marketers would have you believe otherwise...