Participant

Answered

How to Align Text Top Left in a Field?

45 replies
100368 views
Translate

In Acrobat XI, how do I get text to align top left in a form field? When I create a new text field, the text centers inside the field. Thanks for any help.

try67Correct answer

Community Expert

Set the multiline option (under Properties - Options tab) to get the text

aligned to the top of the field. Horizontal alignment can be set in the

same location under the Alignment property.

K

kasyk3073858

Participant

I have been using Adobe for a long time and with the new changes I am so lost! This took forever to figure out! Thank you for your time in posting! You saved me!

Translate

F

FuriousDuckling420

Participant

There are some other strange things going on. Certain fonts seem to cause the text to start near the middle of the field.

To reproduce the issue:

Create a text field
In Text Field Properties / Options remove selected options and select multi-line and Allow Rich Text Formatting
Enter Preview and enter some text in the top left of your text field
Go back to edit and then back into In Text Field Properties / Options
Change the Font to Cambria

The text entered in preview then moves from the top of the text field to nearer the middle.

This has been infuriating me this afternoon.

Translate

J

Josh_Akins

Participant

You are absolutely correct. Stay away from fonts like Cambria, it will cause the text to begin at the middle and space out the characters too much.

Translate

debbiea3671436

Participant

I have tried this numerous times and I cannot get it to align to the top and left. I have even tried by going into CTRL-E and then clicking on the field I want to do this alignment, Click on More... Under the paragraph tab, I have put the Alignment to Left and Top with everything else at zero and single space. Here too, it aligns in the middle even though this was done too.

I know I have gotten it to work, but I cannot remember. I thought someone had set to unclick the multi-line, but that never made sense.

Translate

T

twilly910

Known Participant

Having the same issue. Still working on it, it anyone figured it out, please post.

Translate

try67

Community Expert

Did you look at the correct answer for this thread?

Translate

Tech_Guy

Participating Frequently

I just discovered something that solved this for me. I discovered I have a user problem rather than a software problem.

The back story for me is that we use a form to which I was recently asked to add a free-form "notes" field with room for two lines, and I did so. A short time after, the most frequent user of this form asked if I could edit the notes field so that the text aligns top. I was confused as to why it did not, by default, so I tested it. Sure enough, I clicked in the field and the cursor was waiting at the bottom. That was when I double-checked the properties and made my first reply to this thread. After today's replies, I went back in to try the suggestions in those replies. I tested again and the cursor went to the bottom again. While checking options and filling the field to test them, I (seemingly randomly) got the cursor to go to the top line, but after clearing the text and exiting the field and clicking back in, it went to the bottom again. It was during this testing that I realized that the multiline format is not the same as a type-flowed text box and will allow the user to click onto whichever line they please and begin typing...

In the end, then, when I thought the text was not aligning to the top of the field, the problem was actually that the users were clicking into the field and happened to be clicking probably into the middle of the field, which was setting the cursor to the beginning of the second line. Hope this info helps others who are confused by this behavior.

Translate

M

mdillow

Participant

This was also giving me fits in PRO DC.

In the field properties dialog under the options tab, make sure all three (Multi-line, Scroll Long Text, and Allow Rich Text formatting.

This changes the dialog to allow you to chose left right or center. It appears it always place the cursor top-left. There is oddly no option for aligning the text in a field horizontally.

Hope that helps.

Translate

A

asiramv

Inspiring

I have a variation on this issue--such a small thing but it's driving me nuts. I want to have the text in my field start at the top. It wants to start at the middle, which doesn't allow me to align the text that the user types into the labels I'm providing. I've spent a while on this and looked at all the above solutions. When I multiclick the fields and align, they all align to each other. I want the information input to align to top.

I've tried designing in InDesign as well as Acrobat and it's not happening for me.

Thanks

Translate

A

annabnan

Participant

OMG thank you! This has been beating me for a long time!!

Translate

J

JBallou

Participant

This does not apply to Acrobat DC.

Translate

try67

Community Expert

It should... What happens when you try to do it there?

Translate

Tech_Guy

Participating Frequently

I landed here looking for an answer to this for Acrobat Pro DC. When setting a text field to Multi-line, it aligns bottom and if I deselect Multi-line, the field aligns middle. I can see no way to set it to align top.

Translate