Acrobat fillable form auto populate fields

[Applepeople]

I created a simple fillable form with some fields auto-populating in a section at the bottom.

I'd like my user to be able to change some of those auto-populated fields if needed.

Anyone know how to achieve this?

(I've created in Acrobat Pro. If my user fills it in Reader does that make a difference? I can't test it myself in Reader as it keeps crashing and crashing.)

Stumped...

Thank you!

[Amal.]

Hi there

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described, you want the users using Acrobat Reader DC to change the fields in the PDF form if required.

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is a freeware application with limited functionality. It is used to view , read, fill and sign and annotate the PDF files. For more information about Acrobat Reader DC application please check out the help page: https://helpx.adobe.com/reader/faq.html

Hope this information will help

Regards

Amal

[try67 · Accepted solution]

In order to do that you have to give those fields unique names and then use a script to copy the value from the main field to them. For example, let's say you have fields called Name and Name_Copy.

Set the custom validation script of "Name" to the following code:

this.getField("Name_Copy").value = event.value;

When the user updates that field it will automatically copy the value they entered into the Name_Copy field, but they'll still be able to independently edit the value of Name_Copy, if they wanted to.

[Applepeople]

Thank you so much. I will try that today and reply back.

[Applepeople]

hello Try67 - I failed and I think I need a bit more clarification.

My first field is ID#

It populates to:

View 1

View 2 (up to view 6)

When the Id# is first entered, it populates across all the views. I then want my user to be able to change the view id names if necessary.

From your directions: Do I give each "view" a unique name? But then where do I put the validation script?

(I tried going to my first populated field and changed the name from ID# to ID#2. Then I went to it's validation field and enter the script: this.getField("ID#2").value = event.value;

but it did not work. The field didn't populate, of course because the name became unique.

Do I put the script in the ordinal ID# validation area and make a separate script for each view?

Thank you for your help and patience!

[try67]

Yes, put the script in the first field's Validation event.

PS. I would choose a different naming scheme, because Acrobat uses the pound/hash symbol ("#") to represent fields with the same name, so it could become confusing. Maybe call them IDNumber1, IDNumber2, etc., instead.

[Applepeople]

I got it! And thanks for the tip on changing out the hashtags.

Wow. Thanks so much.