changing font style and colour default in buttons and forms for interactive pdf

[Guest]

Hi there,

Does anyone know how to change the default font style, colour and size in indesign when creating text fields for an interactive pdf. At the moment i have to change each field individually as it keeps defaulting to Minion Pro and its so time consuming?

[Derek Cross · Accepted solution]

You can change the default InDesign font, size and colour by changing it without any documents open. This applies whatever kind of format your final document is to be.

If you want to change the font (Times) that appears in the text fields in the PDF form you've created in InDesign, you can do that in Acrobat Pro. It's best to stick to system fonts.

[Royal25672426adzg]

Can we change font color in indesign instead of changing it in Acrobat?

[Derek Cross]

No, you change the size, font, colour, alignment of the text the user types in the fields in Acrobat Pro. The labels you create in InDesign can be in any colour and style you want!

[DelBocaVista]

Derek’s answer is incorrect, unfortunately. While changing the Basic Paragraph style without a document open changes InDesign’s default font for text placed into a document, text entry fields for interactive PDFs, sadly, will still default to InDesign’s default of 12pt Minion Pro. This is especially galling because as Derek did point out, it’s best to use system-safe fonts for these fields, and Minion Pro is anything but that.

The best workaround I’ve found is to keep a library of already formatted interactive elements in my Creative Cloud Library, then drag them into my form and resize as needed. It would be a great timesaver if these attributes could be supported with Object Styles, but that’s the best option I know of at this point.

The thing about this that’s truly frustrating is that creating interactivity elements in Acrobat only makes sense if you never need to revise the layout (in two decades as a designer, I have never had this happen; not even once). Any time you need to update your form, whatever interactive elements you had to create in Acrobat need to be created all over again from scratch. Acrobat is an output tool. Any time you’re doing major edits in Acrobat, there’s a good chance you’re creating a massive headache for yourself down the road.

[Diane Burns]

Assuming you mean text fields in a form, the default will be Minion Pro.

If, as I first read your post, you want to change the text you are inputting to a text box (or frame, which some folks also call a field), Derek's answer is correct. 

I know of no way to set a default for this. The response given by @DelBocaVista seems a reasonable workaround.

[mfaubion]

"Guest:" I create a "master" text field with the font and other parameters changed, copy-drag it into the indesign document and rename the field. If you're making table cells into graphic cells in a form, you can use step and repeat after copy-dragging to the next cell. However, the copied form fields are then "floating" in the layout instead of anchored in the table cells, so if you move or edit the table you have to start over. It would all be much easier if we could just change the text field defaults, or at least have a "duplicate parameters" in the forms pallette.