Broken Reader functionality after getting an Acrobat Form back.

Question

Hi,
we have recently run into the problem that several completed Acrobat Forms with enabled extended Reader features (for saving the form from Reader) came back with the Reader features broken:
The main problem lies in the fact that we set some textboxes to allow multi-line entry and to scroll long text. (We were pretty certain that some users would need more space than there is available).
This leaves us with a completed form in which only users with Acrobat Standard or Pro can access the complete text entries.
I tried to reproduce the error but failed. I did use a single line of JavaScript as an page entry event on the first page to turn off the field overlay.
That's more or less all there's special about the file. At least there seems to be some kind of regularity in the behavior: a second version of the same form from one of the users causing problems was broken, too.
Unfortunately, I don't know any details on which reader version the users filling out the form have.
I also can't share the broken foms since the contents are pretty confidential.
Has anyone else experienced something similar?
Many thanks and best regards,
Mike

Answer 1

Yes, it should be a custom calculate script. Here's a sample one below. It assumes the fields are named "A1", "A2", ..."A23". You will have to change the value of the "row" variable for each script, which is currently set to 2, meaning it should go in the A2 field. This really should be a function in a document-level JavaScript to it can be called by passing the row number or extracting it from the value of event.target.name, but it should get you started. Note that I didn't test it, so it might need some tweaking:
// Custom Calculation script for row 2
(function () {
    // Row number of this field
    var row = 2;
    // Get the value of the A column field
    var sVal = getField("A" + row).valueAsString;
    var sVal2;
     // Set this field value to  "O/D" if blank
    if (!sVal) {
        event.value = "O/D";
        return;
    // Scan the previous rows to see if any match this value
    for (var i = 1; i < row; i += 1) {
        // Get the current row value
        sVal2 = getField("A" + i).valueAsString;
        // See if it matches
        if (sVal2 === sVal) {
            event.value = "Deobligate";
            return;
     // No match was found. so set this field value to "Obligate"
    event.value = "Obligate";