clear form

[murrjames]

Probably the silliest question....How do you clear a form in Acrobat DC. I spent an hour looking. I do not want to use a reset button.

[try67]

how do I clear forms in adobe acrobat dc (PDF Forms)

[murrjames]

Sorry, was not clear. Reset form in Adobe DC READER

[gkaiseril]

Reader cannot add form field buttons and easily provide access to the JavaScript console. With Reader you can change Reader's Preferences to open the JavaScript console on an error condition. If you know how to add a JavaScript file to either the appliction's or the user's JavaScript folder you  can add a script to add menu item to open the JavaScript console.

[murrjames]

I do not want a button to reset.

In READER DC, is there a menu item that will clear the form?

[gkaiseril]

No. You could add one with by installing a special script file.

[murrjames]

Are you telling me that if a user fills out a form in reader DC and makes a wrong radio button selection that they have to start a new form?

[murrjames]

example, a section in the pdf for certain people,,,,someone accidentally selected a radio button in that section, they should not have...so how can that radio button be reset to no choice being made

[gkaiseril]

You could add a button to clear that specific form field. If you do not absolutely need a Radio Button, change the Radio Buttons to Check Boxes with the "Circle" Button Style. Check Box form fields can be cleared by clicking on the selected item.

The Acrobat JavaScript "resetForm()" object can clear the entire form or specified fields. The specified fields are passed to the "resetFrom" method as an array;

[murrjames]

Ok, so I ma not removing the radio button.

So please confirm there is no built in way to clear a form in Acrobat reader dc. That is what I want to know. So it becomes another failure of the application for not having that. Am I wrong?

[gkaiseril]

There is no provided option in Reader.

[George_Johnson · Accepted solution]

I'd say it's a failure of the form designer/creator, not Reader.

[try67]

I disagree. This should be a built-in option, as it's a very basic feature, and it was available in previous versions.

[murrjames]

yes it is in acrobat xi reader, not acrobat 2017/DC. Another adobe failure. Unless someone can prove me wrong...

[gkaiseril]

If you think it is a bug or should be added as an improvement, then submit a Feature Request/Bug Report.

It is not that hard to add a button to reset a form. It is far more complex to have a generalized feature to have a list of field names, which might not match the user's expectation, and select one or more fields to clear.

There is also the issue of how to make this feature work for all the other PDF reader applications written by other vendors.

[murrjames]

it is in adobe xi.....so......

[try67]

The Clear Form button doesn't need to show any list of field names. It needs to reset all the fields in the file (maybe after prompting the user to make sure they want to do so). This is a super basic feature that should have never been removed from Reader. In fact, it probably breaks the usability of a lot of form developers who relied on it and therefore didn't add a "Reset Form" button to their file because it was available.

[George_Johnson]

Do you recall any specific versions of Reader that had a separate means to entirely reset a form? I know it's been available in Acrobat all along, but have always thought it was a good thing that it wasn't available in Reader. If it were possible, it could really mess up a lot of forms.

[murrjames]

I believe Adobe XI, I can double check when I get home....

[try67]

I thought so too, but actually I can't find it there, either...

[Hermaze]

Found it! Select the prepare form tool then click more in the side panel. There you will see the clear form option.

[rayk82643063]

Thank you for your "find". I've been searchng for days for that button which was so easy to find in the previous version of Aacrobat.

[jane-e]

Does the "Clear Form" in Acrobat Reader XI clear the entire form or just selected fields? There is a Clear Form command in Acrobat Pro that clears the form. To have control over individual fields, the user who designs the form needs to on purpose create a Clear button and then select the proper fields.

As I understand it, @murrjames wants to clear a section — specifically a group of radio buttons. I don't see how any generic clear button from Adobe could limit the clear to a group of radio buttons with a specific name. How could Acrobat or the Reader identify the proper field names. It would take input from the user who created the form.

@murrjames , if there were a "Clear Form" button built into Reader and you clicked it and it cleared your entire form, is that what you would want?  Because Revert would do the same thing.

Jane

[try67 · Accepted solution]

You can now add a "Clear Form" command to Reader using this (free) tool I've developed, and not be dependent on the form author to do it for you: Custom-made Adobe Scripts: Reader -- Clear Form (FREE)

[Hermaze]

Found it! Select the prepare form tool then click more in the side panel. There you will see the clear form option.