Detecting Form Fields

Here at work, we use AutoCAD to draw up specs on our products. From there we convert to .PDF where we fill in the text fields as needed for our products.
Rather than manually placing each text field on the PDF, how do I have the program locate where the fields should go? I think this is called, Detecting Form Fields.
I have my PDF I just created from AutoCAD with no text fields in it yet.
I go to Forms > Add or Edit Fields, then I get a pop up saying, "Currently no form fields in this PDF. Do you want Acrobat to detect fields for you?"
I click YES and it says, "No new form field annotations were detected"
How do I get this to find the fields so I dont have to manually insert every text field??
I am using Adobe Acrobat Pro 9.5
Any help is appreciated.
Thanks,
Dan

Here are some guidelines: http://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/designing-forms-auto-field-detection-adobe-acrobat
But if you can't change the source document design so that the Form Wizard is able to divine where fields should go, there's not a lot you can do.

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Auto-Detect Form Fields from Word 2007

LiveCycle 8.x fails to detect form fields from form documents I've created in Word 2007. I also notice that Word 2007 documents saved as Word 2003 documents do not convert the text fields either (text fields static).
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Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro - Form Wizard isn't detecting form fields?

Hi there,
I've been scouring various forums, blogs, etc. to find an answer to my problem, and have yet to be successful. Here it is:
I've created a form in Illustrator CS5 using the rectangle shape tool to indicate form fields. I need users to be able to enter information in each of the specified fields. I've saved the file as a .PDF and have opened it into Adobe Acrobat Pro 9. I then select "Start Form Wizard" from the Forms menu, and after making the appropriate selections it tells me: "No new form field annotations were detected." and then prompts me to the form editing page. I've also tried simply selecting "Add or Edit Fields" from the Forms menu and the same thing happens - it isn't detecting any form fields.
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I'm new to converting Illustrator files into interactive .PDFs, so I'm not sure what I should be doing. The background color of the document is grey and the boxes are white with no outline (I tried it with an outline around the boxes and it still didn't work). Any advice would be much appreciated! Thanks.
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Hi Beth
How big are these fields? Are they for entering text or just check boxes?
I have found that sometimes FormWizard is not compatible with some Quark files.
Sounds like it might be easier for you to do the fields manually.
First draw the field like you want it and set that as the default then you can choose to paste multiple fields.
Also if you want to use a line for FormWizard you can make the background of the field white and cover the line with it.
Ron

The "auto-detect form fields" function.

Is it the same in adobe 11 as it is in adobe 9?

I could tell it not to run in Acrobat 9 but can’t figure out how to do that in version 11. When I use the Create Form command, I get a series of windows that guide me through the process of creating the form. Unlike Acrobat 9, none of those windows includes an option for not running auto detect. At the end of the process, the form is created with fields. The only solution seems to be to let Acrobat create the fields, and then delete them all and manually create the fields I want. Thanks for your feedback.

No Form Fields Detected - Adobe Pro X

Hi all,
Having a very frustrating time today and probably missing something simple. I have created a new PDF Form and also edited a previous Form that I have used. However, when uploading them into our software (proprietary), we get the error "No Form Fields Detected". However, the previously edited document (the same but from previous installation of the same software - Adobe X Pro) works fine. They are the same!
Am I missing something here? I get the option to Edit in Designer in my tools menu. Checked and double checked all the fields are correct as before, no change but the two forms behave differently. On the two versions of the previous Form, I have gone through Properties etc step by step and both Forms are identical.
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Thanks for your reply. Finally solved it last night. Simple in the end but took ages to find it (and much hair pulling).
My Forms were saved as Dynamic XML. So I saved them as Static XML then reapplied Reader Extended features and it all worked fine.
Appreciate you looking.
Kind regards
David

Editing Form Fields inside Acrobat? (after using LiveCycle Designer)

Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro Extended == Acrobat
LiveCycle Designer ES 8.2 == LiveCycle Designer
=========================================
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Now say I want to remove a particular object from the PDF, lets take an image as an example.
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I remove that pesky little object.
In LiveCycle Designer, I save the file as PDF.
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Thank you Niall for the above response; Your response gave me an idea which allowed me to remove that line by zooming in to 200%
You know Acrobat detects Form Fields for you.
But many times it makes mistakes, for example in the screenshot below it made the boxes that came with the PDF as text fields instead of check boxes.
The thing is rather than me delete the (form) fields it detected, and start over by making new check boxes, I will not be able to place my new check box in exact locations as Acrobat has done.
When I imported the fields that Acrobat made into LC (by saving the PDF in Acrobat and then opening it with LC) I get option to change the Object Type from Text Field to Check Box when I right click the object.
Is there a similar way to change the Object Type from Text Field to Check Box inside Acrobat? Any suggestions?
===========
I would really like to do it inside Acrobat because then if I have to make some minor changes to some field properties, all my hard work which I did by filling the fields gets deleted, as I am forced to use LC. The text I add to the fields don't get deleted when I edit the field properties inside Acrobat. I don't know why LC decides to delete all the text which is filled out in the form fields even though the PDF is saved in Acrobat before being imported into LC?
Here is the above PDF file with the text boxes:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lnn32jm5am5
Again thanks for all your guidance so far.

How to change font in multiple form fields?

I am creating a form - there are about 2 dozen form fields that are set up.
I had Acrobat detect form fields.
Is there a way I can select multiple form fields and change the font in all of them?
I have tried selecting all the fields [cmd A] and double clicking to get to the appearance tab.
The only changes the font in the 1 field I double click.
thanks everyone!

matthewmcneil wrote:
I am creating a form - there are about 2 dozen form fields that are set up.
I had Acrobat detect form fields.
Is there a way I can select multiple form fields and change the font in all of them?
I have tried selecting all the fields [cmd A] and double clicking to get to the appearance tab.
The only changes the font in the 1 field I double click.
thanks everyone!
Select all the form fields , select first the hold shift key and select the rest Then right click or control click and choose properties. then look for "Fonts" choose desired font. If this works your all set otherwise you will have to choose each indivually and change.

Form Fields Inside CFWINDOW

I have some text input fields (cfinput) inside of some
cfwindows. The cursor is not displaying in these fields, and I
cannot set the focus to the first text field using the JavaScript
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Thank you Niall for the above response; Your response gave me an idea which allowed me to remove that line by zooming in to 200%
You know Acrobat detects Form Fields for you.
But many times it makes mistakes, for example in the screenshot below it made the boxes that came with the PDF as text fields instead of check boxes.
The thing is rather than me delete the (form) fields it detected, and start over by making new check boxes, I will not be able to place my new check box in exact locations as Acrobat has done.
When I imported the fields that Acrobat made into LC (by saving the PDF in Acrobat and then opening it with LC) I get option to change the Object Type from Text Field to Check Box when I right click the object.
Is there a similar way to change the Object Type from Text Field to Check Box inside Acrobat? Any suggestions?
===========
I would really like to do it inside Acrobat because then if I have to make some minor changes to some field properties, all my hard work which I did by filling the fields gets deleted, as I am forced to use LC. The text I add to the fields don't get deleted when I edit the field properties inside Acrobat. I don't know why LC decides to delete all the text which is filled out in the form fields even though the PDF is saved in Acrobat before being imported into LC?
Here is the above PDF file with the text boxes:
http://www.mediafire.com/?lnn32jm5am5
Again thanks for all your guidance so far.

Acrobat X Pro detects no form fields in the PDF created by Excel

I am using Acrobat X Pro on a Macbook running Yosemite OS X. Office 2011 and Acrobat are both fully updated.
I have created a PDF from an Excel spreadsheet. two columns. first column has text to describe what the user is supposed to enter in the second column. the cells in the second column have a border box drawn around them. I saved this Excel document as a PDF. I opened it in Acrobat X Pro and used the Tool - Create Fillable Form. It gives a message saying "No form fields detected". What am i doing wrong? Is there an issue with this process?

i have read at least 4 articles and watch 3 videos that do almost the same process i have explained. the only difference is that they used Word to create their PDF doc. they had no issues.
so i am wondering if there is something wrong with the Excel PDF process. i have tried this one 2 different MacBooks with same result.
what does the cell have to have in order for Acrobat to detect it as a form field?
I have a spreadsheet that has over 300 fields that should have been detected. so yes, i could create them manually, but i am hoping to get this Acrobat to detect them.
I tried the process you did "File=>Create Form". i got same message.
i built a separate little test process to describe the issue. see image that is attached.
it is very simple, yet no fields were detected.

Acrobat 9 auto detecting forms but then fields do not appear?

I ran the create form wizard to detect forms and it looks like it found most of them because they appear in the fields list on the right hand side. However, no forms appear on the actual PDF. Really strange as it seems to have detected all the forms.

Try zooming out to see if they are placed somewhere off of the visible page. It's helpful to have the Select Object tool (black arrow) active when you do this so you can see the field borders.

Run form field detection missing

Does anyone know where I can find the 'run form field detection'? It supposed to be under the advanced tab - accessibility. I'm using Acrobat 9 Pro.

Never mind, I got it back after a reinstall.

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Hi,
Just started using acrobat 9 standard and I'm having problems with it detecting all the forms on my PDF. The document I'm using has a ton of check boxes and it's not picking up on any of them. Is there a way to get it to recognize the boxes or do I have to do this manually?

Fred, you have to create the form fields in Acrobat. The form fields that you might have created with WORD or other application will not be translated to form fields in Acrobat. If you are using Designer, then the fields can be imported from WORD, but then you can no longer edit the PDF with Acrobat.
For the original post, I am not sure what you mean. If the form is fillable, then the hand will change to an I-bar as you pass over a form field. If it does not change, it is not a fillable form. As far as I know, there is nothing you can do about it with AA 9 Std. I think you have to have Pro to do forms, but am not sure.

Acrobat X Pro - Duplication of form fields

I use Acrobat X Pro to make fillable forms and frequently have an issue with form fields duplicating over top of each other when I try to format a group of fields. Our forms are often several pages in length and it's very time consuming to have to repeatedly delete the duplicate fields and reformat the original fields. I have the same issue when I attempt to copy radio buttons from one form to another (e.g. I copy the radio buttons from the English to the French versions of the same form to save time of adding and formatting the radio buttons on the French PDF). Is there a way I can prevent the fields from duplicating? My operating system is Windows XP.

i have read at least 4 articles and watch 3 videos that do almost the same process i have explained. the only difference is that they used Word to create their PDF doc. they had no issues.
so i am wondering if there is something wrong with the Excel PDF process. i have tried this one 2 different MacBooks with same result.
what does the cell have to have in order for Acrobat to detect it as a form field?
I have a spreadsheet that has over 300 fields that should have been detected. so yes, i could create them manually, but i am hoping to get this Acrobat to detect them.
I tried the process you did "File=>Create Form". i got same message.
i built a separate little test process to describe the issue. see image that is attached.
it is very simple, yet no fields were detected.

Autodetect text form fields-How do you get it to find all field areas?

I have 50 pages, all identical. I created in InDesign and its simply just a chart that is about 50 lines with 4 columns. It was created as a table also and very clean. I want each of those cells to be converted to text form fields in Acrobat. When I run the auto detect, it finds every one except the column on the far right and one of the cells on the very bottom with all 50 pages. I really need this to autodetect these or else I will have to do all those missing ones manually and that is a TON I will have to do and give unique names also which I really dont want to do! I have attached a screenshot of the form as is and another showing all the detected fields.

I don't think that there is a way to do, I think your only option is to add manually. If that column is the same size as last one on the right that it detected then you can copy>paste. But beware you may have to rename the field and double check your tabbing order when doing so.
If all your 50 pages have the exact same fields then get your 1st page setup. Then create page 2 and open your pdf with the correct fields, go to Document>Replaces Pages, and select page 2, so the same for all pages and then combine all pages into 1 pdf when finished (seems like a lot of steps but in my opinion faster then doing 50+ pages and however many fields). As long as your 1st page is the exact same field setup as all the rest this should prevent you from having to redo all 50 pages.

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In Adobe Acrobat X Pro, I receive the following error when I try to change the name of a text field from Company.BS.Condition1.Date to Company.BS.Condition.Date: "A field of a different type already uses this name. Please choose a new name for the field, or change the field type to match the existing field with this name." But, there is no other field with that name. There is a checkbox with a similar name: Company.BS.Condition I must use these particular field names, as they are being automatically populated by a program that is written to use these field names.

Sometimes while creating a form it's structures gets corrupted due to which some users face this difficulty. Here's what you can do fix the issue.
Print the form using Adobe PDF printer (installed with Acrobat) to create a flat file with no fields.
Open the form in Acrobat. Click on Tools-> Forms -> Edit.
Allow the form to self detect the fields.
Place the remaining fields like checkbox, signature fields and text fields.
Close the form editing mode and save the form.
For the Reader users, remember to read extend the form. If the all the users are using Reader XI then it's fine.
To Read extend the form, Open the form in Acrobat, click on "File" -> Save as Other-> Reader Extended PDF-> Enable Additonal features.
I am also attaching the fixed form for your reference.
~Deepak

Detecting Form Fields

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