Technique PDF23:Providing interactive form controls in PDF documents

Example 1: Adding interactive controls to existing forms in PDF documents using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro

This example is shown with Adobe Acrobat Pro. There are other software tools that perform similar functions. See the list of other software tools in .

If you have a form in a tagged PDF document (created by scanning a paper form or using an authoring tool to generate tagged PDF), you can use Adobe Acrobat Pro to make the form elements keyboard accessible in the same page locations as the static form.

1. Use Advanced > Accessibility > Run Form Field Recognition to automatically detect form fields and make them fillable.

The following image shows the Run Form Field Recognition tool is selected to detect form fields in a document converted to tagged PDF.

The following image shows the resulting form fields after the Run Form Recognition tool is run.

This example is shown in operation in the working example of Interactive Controls in Acrobat.

Example 2: Adding form controls in PDF documents using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro

This example is shown with Adobe Acrobat Pro. There are other software tools that perform similar functions. See the list of other software tools in .

You can add keyboard accessible form controls to your form as follows:

1. Forms > Add or Edit Fields... This puts the form in Form Editing mode.
2. Open the Add New Field menu on the upper left, and select a form field to add. The image below shows the menu of fields.

The following image shows a checkbox added to the form in Example 1.

This example is shown in operation in the working example of Interactive Controls in LiveCycle Designer.

Example 3: Editing form controls in PDF documents using Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro

This example is shown with Adobe Acrobat Pro. There are other software tools that perform similar functions. See the list of other software tools in .

To edit fields, select the context menu for the field and select Properties... The properties menu for that form field lets you modify it, as shown in the following image.

Example 4: Creating new interactive forms with Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES 8.2.1

This example is shown with Adobe LiveCycle Designer. There are other software tools that perform similar functions. See the list of other software tools in .

You can use Adobe LiveCycle Designer to create new forms. In addition to invoking this standalone tool from the Windows Start menu, you can invoke it in Adobe Acrobat Pro:

1. Forms > Start Form Wizard...
2. Select the No Existing Form radio button, as shown in the following image.

Clicking Next invokes LiveCycle Designer and the first page of the New Form Assistant. as shown in the following image.

When you invoke LiveCycle Designer from the Windows Start menu, the Form Wizard is available from File > New...

The New Form Assistant creates a blank form. Use the Object Library in the right pane to select form controls.

You can also use LiveCycle Designer to create forms based on commonly used forms templates.

1. Invoke the Template Assistant wizard from the New pulldown: .
2. Select Forms and then select an appropriate type of form. Then, you can personalize the form by swapping out placeholder text, graphics, form fields, and properties with custom objects that you provide or define.

Example 5: Adding a text field in a PDF document using the /Tx field type

The following code fragment illustrates code that is typical for a simple text field such as shown in Examples 1 and 2. This is typically accomplished by an authoring tool.

<< /AP -dict-                                                   
   /DA /Helv  0 Tf 0 g
   /DR -dict-
   /F 0x4
   /FT Tx              % FT key set to Tx for Text Field
   /P -dict-
   /Rect -array-
   /StructParent 0x1
   /Subtype Widget
   /T Date you are available   % Partial field name Date
   /TU Date you are available: use mm/dd/yyyy format % TU tool tip value serves as short description
   /Type Annot
   /V Pat Jones
>>
...
<Start Stream>
 BT
  /P <</MCID 0 >>BDC
  /CS0 cs 0  scn 
  /TT0 1 Tf
    -0.001 Tc 0.003 Tw 11.04 0 0 11.04 72 709.56 Tm
    [(P)-6(le)-3(as)10(e)-3( )11(P)-6(rin)2(t)-3( Y)8(o)-7(u)2(r N)4(a)11(m)-6(e)]TJ
  0 Tc 0 Tw 9.533 0 Td
  ( )Tj
  -0.004 Tc 0.004 Tw 0.217 0 Td
  [(\()-5(R)-4(e)5(q)-1(u)-1(i)-3(r)-3(e)-6(d)-1(\))]TJ
 EMC
  /P <</MCID 1 >>BDC
  0 Tc 0 Tw 4.283 0 Td
  [( )-2( )]TJ
   EMC
   /ArtifactSpan <</MCID 2 >>BDC
   0.002 Tc -0.002 Tw 0.456 0 Td
  [(__)11(___)11(___)11(___)11(___)11(_)11(____)11(___)11(___)11(__)]TJ
  0 Tc 0 Tw 13.391 0 Td
  ( )Tj
  EMC
 ET
<End Stream>