Should button values be translated?

Report · Aug 30, 2023

I use InDesign and Acrobar a lot for translation and I have a doubt regarding tooltips and button values.

For example, I have several check boxes:
When I open the tooltip in Acrobat through > Prepare a form, it reads "Check box if you want to get hearing notices from the State Hearing Division by email". However, when I hover the mouse over the check box, it reads: "Check box if you want to get hearing notices from the State Hearing Division by email: Yes"

When I access Buttons and Forms in InDesign it also reads "Check box if you want to get hearing notices from the State Hearing Division by email". I translate this tooltip into Spanish in InDesign and, when I check the exported interacted PDF, this tooltip reads as ""Check box if you want to get hearing notices from the State Hearing Division by email: Yes"

My question is: Can I translate the button value in InDesing to "Sí", so that it would display in Spanish in the interactive PDF? Or would that break the radio button? Some people told me this has to do with the language Acrobat is set, but I changed it to Spanish, but it still reads as "Yes" when I open it.

Since this interactive PDF should be accessible and be made ADA compliant, I want to make sure this "Yes" will be translated into the translated language.

Thank you very much for your help!

Report · Aug 30, 2023

Correction: In the translated PDF, it appears as "Quiero recibir avisos de audiencia por parte de la División de Audiencias Estatales por correo electrónico: Yes"

Report · Aug 30, 2023

If you set up a radio button in the Buttons and Forms panel, there's a "Button Value" field at the bottom of the PDF Options section. That's where you can put your translations of the Yes and No values.

In Acrobat, the "Yes" and "No" are found in the Options tab of the Radio Button Properties dialog. So if you were doing 'em manually, it'd look like this:

Report · Aug 30, 2023

Thank you, Joel! Yes, I know they can be added in the sections you show, but my questions is whether that is advisable. Maybe by changing the value, I'm breaking some kind of code?

Report · Aug 30, 2023

Upon rereading your post, I think I'm going to answer "I don't know." Here's why:

My question is: Can I translate the button value in InDesing to "Sí", so that it would display in Spanish in the interactive PDF? Or would that break the radio button?

You can set those values to whatever you want, in either Acrobat or Indesign. However, when you're working in a form with some interactivity, I don't know if we can know what consequences there might be for changing that label. I mean, if I were designing an interactive form for my state org translation client, I wouldn't design the form that way, but I would be entirely unsurprised to encounter a form used the button value in some other scripted action. So changing "Yes" to "Si" might break something else, besides the radio button, but the only way to know for sure would be to Try It And See.

(Or to read all the JS embedded in the buttons, looking for something with

this.getField("TypicalFieldName").exportValues

... which is how I'd personally grab the Yes/No values off of a radio button with JS in Acrobat.)

Report · Aug 30, 2023

I'm pretty sure, the reaction should be based on the action - not the name of the (Radio)Button or any other element on the form?

Report · Aug 30, 2023

I agree completely, Robert, it should. I have encountered JS embedded in PDF forms in the past that was broken by translation of radio button tool tips in exactly this way, so that just means that there are forms out there that rely on methods that the designers shouldn't be using.

Report · Aug 30, 2023

But it's rather bad coding - and not InDesign's or Acrobat's fault.

Someone was probably checking title / caption of the element instead of the name / id.