How to Fix Interactive Text Box Cutt Off Issues in PDFs Opened in Browsers

[Maz331378421dg8]

Hi, all! I'm struggling with something that seems like an easy fix, but I haven't been able to figure it out!

I'm making worksheets for students and figured I'd insert interactive text boxes in case students want to fill the worksheets out on their computers instead of printing and writing. The PDFs work fine when I open them in Adobe Acrobat, but we realized that if opening the worksheets in a browser, the text they enter either disappears when they click out of the field, or if the field is wide enough, it will display some of the text, but it will be at the bottom of the text box and the rest of the lines will be cut off. I'm testing this in Google Chrome, so not sure if this happens in other browsers as well.

I tried making the boxes wider and setting the font size to "Auto", but that doesn't seem to make a difference. Also tried updating Chrome in the hopes that maybe it was a weird browser issue, but that didn't make a difference, either. It's pretty likely that students will try to fill out the forms in a browser, and I have 90 of these worksheets that I now am realizing don't work correctly! Help!

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[James Gifford—NitroPress]

PDF readers are not all the same. Most support only basic, flat-page display and some aren't even good at that. When it gets to more advanced features such as display preference (two-up, for example), or even more so with interactive features, the only reader assured to display/manage these features is Acrobat.

Second-source readers like Foxit and others tend to emphasize "speed" and small software footprint and quirky features — and "not being Adobe" — over complete compatibility. And most readers built into OSes and browsers are a tier of functionality below that.

In other words, there is no solution for your issue except requiring users to use Acrobat as their reader.  As Lucius Fox put it so well... "Good luck."

[Maz331378421dg8]

So, I found an example document that does what I want mine to do. Do you think it was created in a program other than InDesign? Or could an Adobe program create a document with fillable forms that works when opened in a browser?

[James Gifford—NitroPress]

PDF forms are best created in Acrobat DC, I believe. But it's not a feature I've worked with much. Everything comes down to the reader, in the end, and features as complex as forms may or may not work in anything but desktop Acrobat.

[BobLevine]

That PDF was created with InDesign 18.1.

[BobLevine]

Did you notice when you export you export to Adobe PDF? There's a reason for that. Beyond Acrobat or Reader there is no assurance your PDF will work properly and if it's okay in Acrobat, that's it. Don't waste your time trying to "fix" it.