While preparing form in Acrobat, I edit the name of a text field. It turns into a random text field.

[McKenzieClaydon1511]

While preparing a form in Acrobat, I can't edit the name of a text field. It turns into a random text field that I can't delete. I've tried duplicating a current text field and changing the name that way but it still won't let me change the name. Can anyone please help? Screen recording attached!

[George_Johnson]

There's probably nothing you can do to avoid this buggy behavior with your current document. What I'd do is start with a fresh copy of the base PDF and copy and paste (in place) the fields from the old PDF to the new, and see of that makes a difference. You'd also have to copy or remake other things like document JavaScripts, links, bookmarks, etc.

[McKenzieClaydon1511]

Hi George,

Thank you for replying. However this was already a fresh copy of the PDF from an old PDF and I was copy & pasting the fields from the old PDF into the new one, so that's really frustrating that it's not working! Do you have any other idea why this would happen?

[Amal. · Accepted solution]

Hi McKenzieClaydon

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described you are unable to delete the renamed text field as it becomes a random text field.

I have tried to reproduce the issue on my end on Windows 10 machine using Adobe Acrobat DC with latest version and its working fine.

Would you mind sharing the version of the Acrobat DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the latest version 21.01.20155 installed. Go to Help > Check for Updates and reboot the computer once.

Is this a behavior with a particular PDF file or with all the PDFs ? Please try with a different PDF form and check

You may also try to reset the Acrobat preferences to default as described in the help page - https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat/how-to-reset-acrobat-preference-settings-to-default/td-p/4792... and see if that works

Also please try to create a new test user profile with full admin rights or enable the root account in Mac and try using the application there and check.

Regards

Amal

[McKenzieClaydon1511]

Hi Amal,

Thank you for replying,

I have just updated to the current Acrobat DC version 2021.001.20155, and this has allowed me to create a text field names Calc2.0.0 when it didn't let me before. Only thing is that those random fields that have popped up are still there and cannot be deleted. I will keep experimenting to see if I can remove them. They aren't visible when I preview the form so they're not a massive problem.

Thank you for your help!