Export Empty Value for Dropdown List

[bmango]

I have a form with lots of Yes/No dropdowns. For each of these dropdowns I have set the first item to "Please Select". If I leave the export value for this option as blank it exports "Please Select", if the user has not selected Yes or No. How can I set it so that if the dropdown list value is "Please Select" it doesn't export a value for this field? I'm guessing some kind of Javascript action but I don't know where to start.

Any guidance would be very helpful.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

You cannot do that, the list will always export a value. All you can do is have a "this item does not represent a valid selection" export value like e.g. -1 and then use that when you evaluate the settings later and throw it out. Without knowing more about your form, it's hard to give more specific guidance. 

[bmango]

I can do a search and replace on the exported data, but was hoping I would be able to set the empty values beforehand.

[Bernd Alheit]

How does you export the form data?

[bmango]

At the moment we are simply exporting the data by opening individual PDFs going to Prepare Form and then Merge Data with Spreadsheets. 

[try67 · Accepted solution]

You can enter a single space as the export value, and then that would be exported instead of the display value.

If you don't want the field to export at all if the default value is selected you'll need to write a script to do it, yes.

[bmango]

Unfortunately, I can't have a single space either, it needs to be empty. I can see I need to write a script. Where would be the best place to put/trigger the script? Some users might not even click on the dropdown list. Can I trigger the script when they open the document to set all the "Please Select" values to be nothing? I have over 100 fields of this type. 

At the moment we are simply exporting the data by opening individual PDFs going to Prepare Form and then Merge Data with Spreadsheets. 

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

In that case, I would create a macro in Excel to clean up the data.