Disabling the paste function in a text field

[EventeReporting]

I am creating a PDF form and am wanting to restrict the user so they cannot paste text from another source into a text field on the form.  Is this possible?

I am using Acrobat Pro DC.

Thanks.

[George_Johnson]

In a keystroke script you can reject anything that's more than a single character, as would happen if multiple characters were pasted. This would still allow the user to paste a single character at a time. Would that be OK?

[EventeReporting]

If that is something I can setup easily that would be fine.

Thanks.

[George_Johnson · Accepted solution]

The custom keystroke script (Text Field Properties dialog > Format tab > Custom format category > Custom Keystroke Script) can be as simple as:

event.rc = event.change.length < 2;

The problem is if you need to do this for fields that use one of the built-in formatting categories (e.g., Number or Date), then it gets more complicated.

[EventeReporting]

Thank you very much.  That works fine for what I need to do.

[gibson.adam]

Awesome - thank you 🙂

[mpleasants114]

I see how this works, but when I tried on my document I found that I could only access the format tab when a single field is selected. Is there a way to do this for an entire document at once, or at least an entire page at once?

[Thom Parker]

Yes, you can write a console script to apply the custom keystroke to a whole set of fields all at once.  

Read this. 

https://www.pdfscripting.com/public/Editing-Fields-Properties.cfm?sd=40#JScript

[Adriana328051722obh]

It worked. However if I open the form with a browser, pasting text in the field is allowed. Any suggestions?

[try67]

There's nothing to do about it. Most browser PDF plugins are sub-par when it comes to scripts and form fields.

You can complain to the developers of these plugins, but the real solution is to instruct the users to open the file in Reader if they want it to work correctly.

[Adriana328051722obh]

Is there a way to ensure that the PDF file only opens in Adobe Acrobat?

Note: For reference, Firefox is currently the only browser that maintains keystroke restrictions.

[try67]

Not really. You can include a large warning text, though, and hide it with a script when the file is opened. So if scripts don't work the warning will be hidden.

[Adriana328051722obh]

I am a Technologist and I assist college professors. The scope was to avoid students to paste text generated by Chat GPT into the forms. Thank you very much for your help.