Change Defaults in Prepare Forms
During the process of preparing a fillable form from a template, there are certain style attributes that have to be changed to meet my personal style preferences (e.g. font, check-box/radio-box options, form field attributes, and so on).
Performing these changes on simple forms is not a difficult task but, when dealing with an extensive (e.g. multi-page, multi-field type form) template, this process can be pain-stakeingly tedious and result in lack of continuity.
A feature which would allow the user to change the defaults in the Prepare Form feature so that the fillable form would be created with the user specified and preferred settings would be of immense value and a great time-saving feature for those of us who practice this type of forms development.
Thank you, in advance, for your favorable consideration of this matter.
Dewell J Cooper Jr
shared this idea
Thank you for your suggestions. We shall share this with our team.
-Bhavna
-
Colt Flowers commented
To answer Koza's question, I don't know of a way to change the defaults of auto field detection, but after the fields are generated you can left-click and hold to draw a window around all fields to select them. Then right-click one of the selected fields (while all fields are still selected) and open the properties. Changing the properties and confirming will change the properties of all the selected fields. Not as good as setting defaults but a workaround nonetheless.
Also, thank you Ginger for the info! I've also been looking for that.
-
Koza commented
How do you set Adobe to apply these defaults to the auto field detection?
It only seems to work when adding each field individually and manually.
-
Daniel Martin
commented
Ginger,
You are freaking LIFE SAVER!
I've been trying to find the answer to this forever.
Thank you!
-
Ginger Arrington
commented
I looked a bunch of places for the answer to this and I finally found that they fixed it:
Once you create a field and set the properties the way you want them Right Click on the field and select User Current Properties as the New Default. Now any new fields will use those settings.
Whew, I'm glad we are able to do this now.
-
Selma Galev
commented
I second that. I'm working with fillable forms right now and the checkboxes come out wrong. Not only that, they are squares and not checkmarks. I should have the option of changing the template prior to running the automated process of adding fields.
-
mwibben
commented
Working with multiple forms for my organization, our typesetting prepares them to a standard so that everything from fonts, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc are all standardized. If I could set a default for each of those form field types, along with others, it would save hours and hours of work on each form. I get the workaround is the copy and paste from somewhere else but this is a workaround for sure. It would be a HUGE timesaver.
-
Betsy
commented
I would love to be able to set the default form field properties to something like "visible but doesn't print" for all fields at once.
-
lixliu
commented
Are you kidding? How is this not already a feature? Let's review the flow here:
1) I open a PDF doc that I want to convert to a fillable-form.
2) I choose Tools --> Prepare Form
3) I accept the option to scan for all form-field auto detection.
4) All form fields are created.
5) I change the properties on a single field and save.
6) I right-click on the field and choose "Use Current Properties As New Defaults".Now what? All of the form fields were created in step 4! How is step 6 even the least bit useful? Who thought this up? Also, doesn't the word "Default" mean the application should default to these properties in the future? Not just on this document, but on all documents in the future? WTF?
-
Anonymous
commented
I think this is a great idea. It is a bit annoying to have to select multi line in every box that I make.
