How to alter text alignment for interactive text fields?

[georgeb1251557]

I have been trying to make an interactive form in inDesign with reasonable success, but there is one feature that I need to make the whole thing work; the capability to centre the text in the text field box that I have drawn. The Buttons and Forms tab gives me the option to change text size, but that seems to be the only option available in terms of text formatting.

Knowing how to do other features such as making inputted text bold or underlined would also be helpful.

I have looked around on tutorials but none seem to address my specific issue as far as I'm aware. If anyone is able to help it would be greatly appreciated.

[winterm · Accepted solution]

Can’t be done natively in InDesign. Try in Acrobat. Tools > Forms > Edit. Double click on the text field to get Properties. Change its Alignment in Options tab.

[Barb Binder]

True, but don't fix it in Acrobat until the form is finished, because if you have to update the form in InDesign, and output a new PDF, you will lose the editing you added in Acrobat.

~Barb

[BobLevine]

Not necessarily. You could always use the replace pages command in Acrobat.

[TᴀW]

It's all possible with our FormMagic | Id-Extras.com

A free edition is available for short forms.

Ariel

[Casamia]

Maybe, offer a version that one can purchase without a recurring charge.

[JakobSternberg]

Like Adobe? 😅

[trentf94967098]

put fillable text boxes where you want them in InDesign then export pdf (interactive). Open pdf in Acrobat then click on tools tab>prepare form. Double click on fillable text box to open panel and under options select Center under Alignment drop down.

[Keicha Tea World]

This was extremely helpful - thank you!

[staciel42754797]

Thank you!

[jaberle]

Has anyone seen or heard any reasoning behind why you can't do this natively in InDesign? It doesn't make much sense to me why Adobe wouldn't allow you to set these things to be applied upon export, instead of having to jump between programs (and to another user's reply, potentially have to reformat if any updates to the base form need to be made). 

[PCubillos]

I totally agree with jaberle!

However all I hear is crickets!!!!

[michellesmythe*55*]

It can be done in InDesign! - In Buttons and Forms palette, when choosing options for the fillable box. Make sure the Multiline checkbox is ticked 🙂

[Giuseppe27602676gxts]

MY HERO

[Jeff30386443qr3a]

Could you elaborate on this a little? The "multiline" option does not give me any obvious way of setting text alignment. The Buttons and Forms box looks the same whether it's checked or not.

[KMC802]

Did anyone ever respond to you? I can't figure out how to center the interactive field text while in Indesign. Checking the multiline option doesn't seem to do anything.

[Joel Cherney]

I think that the only way to create a form field with its content centered is to do it in the Options tab of the Text Field Properties in Acrobat. If you check the "Allow Rich Text Formatting" box, you can e.g. paste centered text from Word and it will center in the form field. I honestly can't remember how to spawn Acrobat's own rich text editing options in form fields. It's been a long time, and I suspect that the functionality I'm thinking of was found in a retired Adobe app. 

At any rate, your options for formatted text in form fields in Acrobat are few, but there isn't really any way to do it at all from within InDesign natively without a separate commercial tool.

[KMC802]

Okay, thank you. I've been able to do it in Acrobat under "Prepare Form" and double clicking the text field. It's just a bummer to have to keep doing that for every field every time I output a new PDF (though I know you can swap in a formatted page...still). Would make much more sense to have that basic option in InDesign.

[Joel Cherney]

Would make much more sense to have that basic option in InDesign.

You're not wrong

If you know any Javascript, it's probably the fastest way to handle large amounts of form field adjustments. For instance, something like this loops through all of the form fields in the PDF and sets alignment to center on all text fields:

for (var i = 0; i < numFields; i++) { 
   var fName = getNthFieldName(i); 
   var f = getField(fName); 
   if (f.type === "text") { 
      f.alignment ="center"; 
   } 
}

 Yes, I agree that improved form field handling tools would be useful in InDesign, but there are so many other ways in which form field handling in InDesign is woefully incomplete that it might appear somewhere in the twenties of my personal "ranked list of feature requests for form fields in InDesign that I haven't yet bothered to file."

[Jeff30386443qr3a]

It does seem to center itself a little better by default if you choose Multiline, but that's all the control I was ever able to exert over this. TBH I switched to Affinity a while back but that has its own limitations.

[Maria342111806s0q]

Awesome, thank sooooo much for this!

[Caroline34873183crow]

Thank you!!! I've been trying to work this out for hours. Not exactly intuitive but once you know you know.

[tawnie5FEC]

I actually just struggled with this. When you are in InDesign, select the text box, and then you will be able to click the font alignment tools. Just click whichever alignment you want, and once you export and open in Adobe it works perfectly! I just did it a few minutes ago!

[michaelm87209950]

tawnie5FEC - This does not work