Skip to main content
Chris Panny
Inspiring
February 2, 2018
Answered

Need To Change Default Text Size For Text Form Field

  • February 2, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 8388 views

Windows 10 Acrobat DC

I have an MS Word 2016 document that I'm saving to Adobe PDF. I open the PDF in Acrobat DC and activate the Prepare Form tool. It scans the doc and assumes all of the horizontal lines are supposed to be text form fields. No problem so far. When I preview a page, it lets me type in some text in a form field, but the default size is set to 12pt. How can I change the default to 10pt? I looked in the Preferences and clicked on Forms, but there's no setting for this. Then I looked at Content Editing and there is a Font option to adjust the Font size, but it's greyed out. The document has several hundred form fields and I can change them by selecting all on a single page, but I'd rather avoid this and just change a Preference if it's possible.

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer try67

As mentioned, you can't set the default. However, you can change it after the fields are created.

There are two ways: Select all the fields in the Fields List panel (or on the page), right-click one of them, select Properties and make the changes there, or use a script.

As for the latter, I've developed a tool that makes it very easy to do it. See: Custom-made Adobe Scripts: Acrobat -- Mass Edit Fields Properties

4 replies

Participating Frequently
March 18, 2021

Hello, since this question was asked in Feb of 2018. It's 3 years later...is the answer still that you cannot set the font size for form fields? Seem antiquated that you cannot set preferences based on font size.

Known Participant
January 30, 2022

& it's now 4 and a half or so yrs later and problem still occurs... I'll be posting a suggestion feature because this would be very helpful. Is this the same as changing the size for the entire display of adobe pdf? The question your asking that is. Because I may be searching what I'm looking for wrong but I'm finding the same issue. 

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
January 31, 2022

No, it's not. This question is about the size of the text in form fields, not the size of the static text of a PDF file, which by the way can't be change so don't bother making a suggestion. It's determined by the author of the file. What you can change in your end is the default zoom setting.

Chris Panny
Inspiring
February 2, 2018

Thanks to both of you for your insight! Since this is a one-off project and I don't use Acrobat that much, I'll just select all the fields and change them via the Properties window. Try67, thanks for posting the link to your Custom-made scripts page. If you haven't done so already, you should put this on Adobe Behance and Adobe MyPortFolio.com.

On a final note, I find it odd / pointless that there's a greyed-out drop-down for the font size in the first place.

It's only an island if you look at it from the water.
try67
Community Expert
try67Community ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
February 2, 2018

As mentioned, you can't set the default. However, you can change it after the fields are created.

There are two ways: Select all the fields in the Fields List panel (or on the page), right-click one of them, select Properties and make the changes there, or use a script.

As for the latter, I've developed a tool that makes it very easy to do it. See: Custom-made Adobe Scripts: Acrobat -- Mass Edit Fields Properties

Bernd Alheit
Community Expert
Community Expert
February 2, 2018

There is no default setting for this.