Importing Excel Data to Drop Down Box

[jzeigler_phfa]

I have two columns of data that I need a drop down box to reference.  I cannot for the life of me figure this out even after reading through multiple tutorials.  Adobe Pro XI and Adobe Forms Central.

I don't want to have to manually enter each field because there are too many to hand-key and too many possibilities for mistakes.

[George_Johnson]

You need to provide more details. Are you asking about populating a dropdown field with items that you have in an Excel spreadsheet? If so, have you seen this: http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1025337?tstart=0

[jzeigler_phfa]

I'm not sure what kind of additional details you need, but I'll throw some information at you anyway.  I have a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (2 columns) that I need to use with a PDF.  This PDF that I am creating will have a drop-down box that I want to display the data from the Excel spreadsheet.  The users must make a selection from the drop-down box.

In my head, this sounds incredibly simple.  However, this has proven to be an incredible headache.  I have Adobe Forms Central and Adobe Acrobat XI Pro.

Thanks in advance.

Jason

[George_Johnson]

First of all, you mentioned FormsCentral. Is the form you're creating intended to work with the FormsCentral service?

You say you have two columns in the spreadsheet. Do you want one dropdown to have items from the first column and another dropdown to have items from the second, or something else?

I directed you to another thread here that shows one method for populating a drop down with items that you copy from a spreadsheet. Have you tried it, and of so, in what way does it not do what you want?

[jzeigler_phfa]

Here's my overall end goal/project:

I need to create a very basic PDF file.  It will include three drop-down boxes for the following: 1. Project # and Project Name; 2. Month; 3. Year.  Fields 2 and 3 (month and year) can be entered manually.  Field 1 (project # and name) need to be pulled from an Excel spreadsheet (2 columns).  The users will need the ability to select only the items in the drop-down boxes and must have the capabilities to save the PDF.

Today is my first day using Adobe XI Pro and Forms Central so I'm not sure where is even the best place to start this project.

The two columns in the spreadsheet (project # and name) should be displayed as:  12345 Scranton

I'd like to have the ability for the end-users to start typing project numbers and have that information populate, but that can wait for another day...

I read the threat/link provided but it only takes me to another website where I can purchase Acrobat from - or is there another link that I'm missing?

[George_Johnson]

OK, forget about FormsCentral for the moment. The link changed because Adobe made a change to the Acrobat.com service, so here's the updated link: https://workspaces.acrobat.com/?d=sIJoabh12oYOY19AuTZ9yw

This file allows you to copy the Excel data, paste it into a text field on the form, and populate the dropdown at the top with the items you copied. In your ase, I would copy from Excel to a text editor first,  and then copy from there to the text field on the form. Once the dropdown is populated with the items, copy the field from the form to your form, resize, and change any other properties to it looks like you want.

Post again if you get stuck.

[jzeigler_phfa]

I'm stuck again...  I downloaded the PDF, copy and pasted the data from Notepad to the downloaded PDF.  What exactly am I copying and pasting to my new PDF?  If I highlight and copy the drop-down box (which includes my data) it only copy and pastes Line 1.

[George_Johnson · Accepted solution]

If the dropdown is populated with the items that you want, you just need to copy the entire field from the form and paste it into your form. To do this, you can go into form editing mode (Tools > Forms > Edit), use the select tool (black arrow) to select and copy the dropdown, and then paste it into your form.

[jzeigler_phfa]

Beautiful!  Thank you!  Now I do have a few follow up questions too...

Is there any way that an end-user can start typing a project number (or name) and have the drop-box navigate to it?

[George_Johnson]

Just to the first item that starts with the character entered. Subsequent presses of that same letter will cycle through the other items starting with that letter. Dropdowns are limited to this behavior.

[SFrazier]

George

I dont know if this the correct way to ask a question or not Ive never used this forum before. I couldnt find any other way to ask you directly a question about this subject you answered in the past. So i just hit reply to ask you about it. I hope thats OK.  I found your info about this issue very helpful I have the same probIem. I downloaded the file to populate the menu. I populated it and then copied it to the form I am building. The only thing is it wont populate all of the entries I copied it just stops at a certain point. I did what you suggested about copying the data to notepad first then the to the menu. It works just not all of the data. Are there any limitations to the amount of data or settings that need to be changed or something? I would appreciate any help on this.

Thanks

Shawn

[nargetdev]

I have gotten so far as copying the combo box.  When I paste it into FormsCentral it just says "null"

[George_Johnson]

This is not for a form that you create in FormsCentral. It is for a form you create in Acrobat.

[nargetdev]

Wow George your response time was incredible.

So there is no known solution for importing excel data to a FormsCentral dropdown?  (i.e. hundreds of entries for different majors, or perhaps hundreds of different countries).  If so this is a pretty big hole in functionality and needs to be nipped in the bud.

Do you happen to know who I might get in contact with that might be able to provide me the resources to work out an implementation?  For now I will see if I can automate it or script it somehow.

[George_Johnson]

If you're creating a PDF form in FormsCentral, as opposed to a web form, it's possible to populate a dropdown after you've generated the PDF form. It would involve opening the form in Acrobat, removing the usage rights by selecting "FIle > Save A Copy", opening this new file and modifying the list box. If you have the sample file I posted, you should modify the multiline text field so that the "Scroll long text" option is selected.

[nargetdev]

I would like to create a web form for cross platform compatibility.

Additionally, although I haven't too much experience with them, I've found PDF forms to be piss poor in functionality.  It's crucial that when the drop down field is selected and the user begins typing "El" for example "Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS)" will be selected.  As far as I've seen there is no such response with the PDF forms.

[try67]

You're wrong. Drop-down fields in PDF forms do work in this way, ie when

you start typing into them it automatically jumps to the matching item to

your text. And you can use a script to import items into them from an Excel

spreadsheet...

[George_Johnson]

I'm not aware of a way to automatically populate a dropdown for a web form created in FormsCentral, sorry.

For a dropdown in a PDF like in your example, if the user pressed E, the first item in the dropdown that started with E would be selected, and subsequent presses of E would cycle through the other items that started with E. In other words, they don't behave like you'd prefer them to.

[nargetdev]

Perhaps I simply hadn't opened the PDF form in the correct way.  Even cycling through would be acceptable.  In my experience there was no response to keystrokes whatsoever.

[George_Johnson]

I believe the dropdown has to actually be dropped down for this to work, as opposed to the field having the focus but not dropped down.

[try67]

Nope. You can simply click in the field and start typing and it will behave

as you've described earlier.

On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 7:19 PM, George Johnson <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[George_Johnson]

It does behave that way on Windows, but not on the Mac (at least not on all versions), so that's what I was remembering.

[try67]

Ah, that could be. I've only tried it on Windows machines.

On Tue, Aug 19, 2014 at 8:54 PM, George Johnson <forums_noreply@adobe.com>

[MelD1477]

Hi George,

Did you ever answer SFrazier's question from Nov 8, 2013 5:43 PM.  I am having the same problem with amount of content I can paste into the text field to populate my drop down box (combo box).  I have a very lengthy list (834 items) and it only seems to be pasting the first 32 items in the list.  Do you know what the maximum number of items is?

[Randi5E77]

I found the form everyone has been asking about. Download this form into Adobe Acrobat and then you can copy and past a dropdown with your list! Here is the link and I attached the file in case it disappears! I se the latest response was from 2014, but I just came across this board and none of the links worked. Hope this helps someone!

https://www.pdfscripting.com/public/FreeStuff/PDFSamples/PDFS_CopyPastListEntries.pdf