How to add a instruction to a text field

Question

Dear all,
I am trying different ways to add a guideline to a text field. I tried
1/ To insert a comment, but clearly it is not working with an interactive form in Adobe Acrobat,
2/ To use text field and set the guideline as default value on the object palette but the problem are
- The text field is not expanded horizontally even I chose Expand to fit option
- The guideline does not disappear in case user do not use it
- The box does not shrink also as users do not type enough lines
3/ To use text instead of text field for the guideline, the problem is
- There will be a large space between the two parts since the guideline is not supposed to be printed.
My question is whether there is a smarter way to suggest users typing in the text field by giving the instructions without having it printed out. For instance, is there a way to have a hidden box, you know, it appears as users drag a mouse or click the field?
I know this is might be a naive question, but please help me out. I would really appreciate.
Edigo

Answer 1

Wow there is a lot to cover in this thread......
1. A flowed subform means that the content within that form will be placed from left to right top to bottom. In your case where you want to place objects beside each other they need to be within a positioned subform (this means the objects will maintain their position relative to the subform boundaries). So in your case I would break up the form into logical sections and wrap those sections into a flowed subform (make the subform dimensions span the page) then wrap all of the sections in a Page subform that is flowed. Now when it flows everything the positioned subform containers will span the page and will keep theobjects where they are positioned.
2. Each cell can only house 1 object. You could add another column to add the second course date.
3. You can add as many rows and columns as you need....so yes you could add a course code.
4. The form can access a database for filling the form or for writing to the DB, but there are a few things you shoudl know. Reader does not have this capability and it must be enabled using LiveCycle Reader Extensions. This is a server based product so it is priced as such. If you have a small number of users it might be more cost effective to buy Acrobat for each user. Once that is taken care of the connection to the DB is controlled by an ODBC driver in the Windows OS. This means that each machine that loads the form will need to have this driver configured (cannot be automated) as well this solution will only work on a Windows machine. In bigger installations this becomes a maintenance nightmare for most IT shops. Do you still want to proceed down this path?
5. A form can only create a single data file structure ....I do not understand what you mean by the last point....can you elaborate?
Paul