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A
Anonymous
January 24, 2017
Question

There is no "Add Text" button on my Acrobat Reader DC -- how do I get it appear?

  • January 24, 2017
  • 1 reply
  • 4866 views

I am using Acrobat Reader DC, on Windows 8.1.  I clicked Tools and then "Fill & Sign", so the Fill&Sign toolbar is present, with only one button ("Sign") -- no other button there.  I tried the dropdown of "Fill&Sign" to choose "More Tools", which gives me a large matrix of tools, but "Add Text" is not one of them.  It's supposed to be there, right? How can I fill out a form?  (This is an IRS form, so it is a fillable form -- it has fields, but won't let me enter text).

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    1 reply

    try67
    Community Expert
    try67Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 25, 2017

    If the form has fields then you don't need to use any special tool. Just click into the fields and you should be able to enter text into them directly.

    Since this is a governmental form it's likely they've protected it to prevent people from adding text willy-nilly and only allowed text to be inserted into the pre-defined fields.

    A
    Anonymous
    January 25, 2017

    Thanks for answering ... looks like I shouldn't need to use the AddText tool on a fillable form, so it should appear if I DO need it?  This IRS form does have fields; I just can't enter any text.  Maybe I'm asking the wrong question.  When I click in the fields, it just dings like I'm doing something not allowed.  I cannot enter text in with or without the Sign&Fill toolbar.  (Although, the fields are not highlighting -- they are invisible, except that my cursor can enter them, I just can't type or paste text).

    EDIT: looks like this does work on other IRS forms, just THIS one that's not working.  So it's a problem with their PDF, I guess, not with Acrobat.

    try67
    Community Expert
    try67Community Expert
    Community Expert
    January 25, 2017

    That "ding" usually means you're trying to enter an invalid character into the field, like a letter into a number field.

    I don't really know what to tell you beyond that... If you shared the file with us we could look into it further.

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