No form field automatically added when creating forms.

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

I am having difficulties with the creation of forms, because the filling spaces are not generated automatically, even though, apparently, the settings are the right ones.

Thinking it might be a malfunction in the program, I uninstall it and reinstalled it, but the behavior is the same.

Any idea what could be wrogn?

Thanks!

As can be seen, the document is a .pdf and Auto-detect form field is ON.

No new form field annotations were detected

These are the configurations

[PDF Automation Station · Accepted solution]

The program detects where it might need fields for a form.  It's not perfect.  It doesn't usually detect field placement in white space.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

The PDF has to LOOK like a form in order for the detection to work. Even then, it's not always correct. I usually recommend trying it--it it doesn't work or looks like it's more work to fix--then build it manually. 

[PDF Automation Station]

Why would you expect it to create fields in a number list of text with no lines or boxes?

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

Well... I was unaware that lines or boxes had to be created.

[PDF Automation Station · Accepted solution]

The program detects where it might need fields for a form.  It's not perfect.  It doesn't usually detect field placement in white space.

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

I understand, thank you very much for the explanation.

Besides the fact that I did not remember it (years ago I had it present) I did not want to visually appear lines or frames, since at the end of the day, the user would not use them to fill the form, this would be inside the purple box that indicates a filling space (and I was wondering a moment ago, if it would be possible to change the color of the box, in order to integrate it to the corporate color...).

I also thought of placing white boxes with a white frame, but as I think I understood, they would not be detected by the program. So I chose to do it manually.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

The PDF has to LOOK like a form in order for the detection to work. Even then, it's not always correct. I usually recommend trying it--it it doesn't work or looks like it's more work to fix--then build it manually. 

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

Thank you, Dave. I will do it that way. 

At first I did not place lines or text boxes, because I did not want them to appear aesthetically, since they would not even be used to fill the document.

[try67]

You can use them in one version so the fields are picked up, and then generate another version of the file without them, and use the Replace Pages method to replace the underlying pages in the file that has fields with those from the file that doesn't. The fields will remain in place.

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

I understand, thanks for the guidance, I will follow up.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I'm not exactly sure what you are trying to accomplish, but you can place one text field and format it exactly as you want them under Properties. Then right-click and use the Create Multiple Copies option to create the entire form. Adjust the height as needed. (I used your upload screen capture as a background image.)

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

Thank you, your guidance has been very helpful.

What I have also tried, is to change the lilac color of the text box, but when changing it, the modification is only visible when selecting the file icon and showing its preview, and in fact, I have no idea what this function is for (I can only think that for the user to see in the thumbnail, which is a form) ... since when opening the file, this change is not visible, the text box returns to be lilac. Perhaps, the color of the box can not be changed.

What I wanted, is to change the lilac tone, to blue color, because it is part of the corporate colors, and it would not interfere with typing because the box disappears when you start typing.

Here I have selected these colors to make the changeover test

However, in the opened file, only the color of the frame changed

And here is the preview, where you can see the green and magenta frame of the selected fill.

This is probably how things are supposed to work, and I just don't know of any further use for those functions at this time. Although once the file is open, being able to change the color of the text box to corporate colors would certainly be useful.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

The default blue highlight is a preference setting. While you can change it on your system, you can't do anything about other people's system. 

[try67]

You can, actually. It's possible to embed a script in the file that will change the highlight color setting on the machine where it is opened, but I would strongly recommend you don't do that. Someone did it to me once and I was furious. I don't think Adobe should have allowed such settings to be changed without the user's consent.

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

I think the same, there must be a number of reasons why Adobe does not allow the user to easily change the color of the box, so we will leave it as it is.

Thank you very much for adding your response try67.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

I'm familiar with the script, but I did not mention it on purpose. Also, javascript in an incoming PDF can get it quarantined by corporations and government agencies. I seen some military computers where javascipt is disabled by the IT dept.

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

To begin with, I notice that in reality, the color of the box is certainly blue, and not lilac as I mentioned.

Yes, I figured it would be a system configuration, and there would be no point in modifying it just to see it for myself.

Thank you very, very much Dave.

[try67 · Accepted solution]

The form detection wizard is far from perfect, but as was mentioned, you didn't really give it anything to use to create the fields, so it's not surprising it didn't create any. You must add some visual indication of where the fields should go, in the form of a box or a line.

[Ernesto Chávez Nuño]

I understand. Thank you very much for the clarification.