Disable scrolling text?

Question

I have seen similar posts but have found no answer. I would like to limit text entered into a field by the actual parameters of the drawn text box. An option which was simple in Acrobat Professional (uncheck scroll long text). While I appreciate any help in this matter, I must warn you that I know nothing about scripting. If the answer lies in adding script to the form field properties, I would need step by step instruction. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Unfortunately, there's no way to do this other than to use scripting. At least it's not too complicated (even though it may appear complex at first, hopefully you'll think it's simple in the end).
When you create fields directly in Acrobat (without using Designer), you're creating AcroForm fields. As you say, there's a "scroll long text" property on these fields which you can uncheck to limit the amount of text to the visual area of the field.
When you create fields in Designer and then open the form in Acrobat, there's a second layer for each field: An XFA Form Field. Script that you write in Designer on fields operate on the XFA layer. It's possible, however, to write script which accesses the AcroForm field properties (properties on the Acrobat Form Field object which wraps the XFA Form Field object) by getting access to the Acrobat Document Object and using its getField method.
In an XFA event like a text field's Enter event (you can get there by selecting the text field, choosing the Script Editor from the Window menu and selecting "enter" from the Show property on the top left corner of the Script Editor), the statement "event.target", when the Script Language is set to
JavaScript, refers to the Acrobat Document Object. From there, you can use the getField method to access the AcroForm "wrapper" for the text field by giving it its address. Once you have that AcroForm object, you can finally set the value of the "doNotScroll" property which is the equivalent of unchecking the "scroll long text" property in Acrobat.
So for a text field named, "TextField1", on the first page on a form, you would do it like this:
event.target.getField("form1[0].#subform[0].TextField1[0]").doNotScroll = true;
I've attached a sample form which is setup correctly and, when run in Acrobat, gives you a multi-line text field in which you can't enter more text than that which fits in the field's area.
I tried to make this as clear as possible but I'm sure you'll have questions so let me know what they are and I'll try to answer them.
Stefan
Adobe Systems