Spawning Blank Fillable Form Pages

Report · May 25, 2023

Hello!

I am a teacher, and not a PDF expert of Java expert. I would love some help for a form I am working on.

What I need:

I have a form that I have to fill out for multiple students. Instead of filling out the form once, saving and then doing another form, I would love a way to spawn a new duplicate page in the form in the same document that I can then fill out for another student.

Where I am at: Based on some posts I saw I was able to add a button to my form using a Javascript. I was able to create a template from my form and the template is hidden. When I hit the button to add a duplicate page, it does it beuaitfully. I get a new duplicate page that I can fill in and it does not interfere with the other pages.

The problem: When I open this form for the first time, it automatically opens with TWO pages instead of one. Whatever I type in page 1, goes directly on to page 2 as well. I can add the new page with the button and page 3,4,5,6,etc., can all be different for different students. I am just wondering why it always opens with two pages instead of one (even after I delete page 2 from the organize pages tool and resave it as a new file). I have even attemped to change the field names of page 1 and 2 to be different so it didn't duplicate the information. That worked, excpet when I saved it and opened it again it now had 3 pages and page 1 and 2 were still identical copying each other. Any ideas why I am getting two pages to begin with and how to get rid of that second page to start? Below is the thread and code I used to get where I am. Thank you so much!

Code/Thread:

The script to create a first page from the templates is:

//get the array of the template object for the PDF;
var aTemplates = this.templates;
// create a new page from the first template placing it at the end of the PDF and renaming the fields;
// rename the fields, do not overlay;aTemplates[0].spawn({nPage: 0, bRename: true, bOverlay: false});

You can hide the template and run this code from the console.

The code to spawn a template from the button should read:

//get the array of the template object for the PDF;
var aTemplates = this.templates;
// create a new page from the first template placing it before the template and rename the fields;
// rename the fields, do not overlay;aTemplates[0].spawn({nPage: this.numPages, bRename: true, bOverlay: false});

Report · May 25, 2023

- To create unique pages you must spawn them as the last page of the document. If you spawn them to be page 1, for example, the generated names of the fields will be the same (because they rely on page number, template name and original field name, and all of those are the same in each spawn), and therefore copies of each other.

- If you spawn a page from a non-hidden Template, the values of the fields in that page will be carried over to the newly added page, even if you set the option to rename the fields on it. You must then reset them manually. You can do that by scanning the document for fields whose page property matches the page number you just created, and resetting them with the resetForm method.