Can't fill in forms in Acrobat Pro DC

[Soolika]

Hi,

I'm trying to create a form in Acrobat Pro DC but am having trouble filling it in. I have used the 'prepare form' tool to create and name all of the fields, but when I come to fill the form in, and the text cursor comes up when I click, no text appears when I type.

Does anyone have any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks,

Alexis

[_arojini]

Hi Soolika,

Please try navigating to the Text field properties and check under the general tab whether the Read only option is unchecked.

Also check under the Appearance tab the text color is not white or of the same color as your text box. It could be a reason that the text color is changed to that of the text box which is making it it invisible.

Also when you trying to fill the form select the Edit PDF option and then select Add text option and then try to fill the form.

Please let me know if this resolves your issue.

Regards

Sarojini

[Soolika]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply, however unfortunately none of those options worked. The document isn't read only and the text is set to black. I can edit the form in the way that you described but it ends up looking messy. It also needs to go to people who only have Acrobat Reader so I don't think that's an option.

The problem seems to be when the 'form field' option under 'General' in Properties is set to 'Hidden but printable'. It works perfectly when when it's visible, but the whole point was that I didn't want to be able to see the form fields.

It's strange, not sure why it's happening!

Thanks again,

Alexis

[try67]

The fields have to be visible for you to be able to interact with them. If you want them to be usable but hidden then you should set their appearance options to not have a fill color or a border color. You can also disable the fields highlight under Edit - Preferences - Forms (but that will only apply on your computer, not when the file is opened elsewhere).

[Soolika]

Hi try67,

Even when it is set to visible but with no fill or stroke it shows as a light blue box, which disappears once text has been entered into it as the person fills in the form.

I have no idea why, can't figure it out! Could possibly be a bug?

Thanks

[try67]

It's because of the "highlight form fields" setting I described... Turn it off and it should disappear.

[Soolika]

Thanks, that did work!

But it's a shame you can't set it to be invisible to all recipients.

Thanks for your help.

[try67]

Actually, you can do it, using a simple script.

However, since this is a global setting that will also affect other files it might be a good idea to inform the users of this change, and possibly get their approval before doing it.