Expanding Textfield in Adobe LiveCycle Designer

[Former Community Member]

I've got an urgent problem with Adobe LiveCycle Designer and I really could use some help. The problem is that I'm trying to get my textfield expandable, but whatever I try, it's not working. What I'm trying to get done is that you can fill in a textfield, and when there is more text than the size of the field, the textfield expands to make the text fit in the field.



I tried a whole lot of things:

placing the textfield in a subform

expand to fit (height)

allow multiple lines

allow page breaks

flowed/positioned

etc.



The strange thing is, that no matter what I try to adjust, I can't change anything in the pagination tab. Maybe that is the problem, but I don't know what to do, to change that.

In the examples of Adobe itself (Purchase Form) is an example of a textfield that sort of behaves as I want it to, BUT the problem is that that textfield in the subform has to be triggered to appear by a button (add comments) and that is what I don't want. I want the textfield to be visible from the beginning. But in that example you CAN see the pagination tab and make changes in it.



I searched a lot in the Adobe Helpfiles of Designer, and I even bought and read/studied the book 'Creating Dynamic Forms with Adobe LiveCycle Designer', but still I'm not able to get this done.



Is there anyone who can help me?



Thanks in advance,



Sterre

[Former Community Member]

I've run into exactly the same issue.



I have a simple list of questions, the answers to which will be user supplied, and variable in length. I'd like for the text fields in which the user enters their responses to grow as needed in order to display the entire length of their answers.



Does anyone out there have any experience with expandable text fields / subforms?



Matt

[Jared_Langdon]

1) Make sure you've saved your file as a dynamic PDF.

2) Make your multi-line text field Expand To Fit (height)



That should do it, but now you'll have problems with your field overrunning anything that's after it. To avoid that, you need to group the sections of your form in Positioned subforms that are themselves inside a Flowed subform.

[OKARNG]

This isn't working for me at all. Grrrr. I didn't create the form from scratch so I don't know if that is affecting my outcome. I have been able to get the expanding field to expand, but it does expand over the other text. I wrapped the text below the expanding field in a subform (positioned) then I wrapped that subform in a subform (flowed) and nothing works. I am even reading from the LiveCycle Designer ES 4 student workbook and I still can't figure this out.I have to be missing a step, but I can't figure it out.

[Former Community Member]

Matt and Sterre,

Jared's suggestion is correct but if you still need further help or an example of how to set up expanding fields, you can email me directly at: gretchen.payne@wch-rcc.com.



Good luck!

[Former Community Member]

Dear Jared,

Thank a lot! Everything is working now!

I've been looking for so long, to find an anwser that simple, haha! But thanks anyway.



Dear Gretchen,

I added your e-mail address to my contacts, for if I have further questions. Thank you very much.



Dear Matt,

I hope that everything works out for you too!



Greetings,



Sterre

[Former Community Member]

Excellent directions and help on this subject, Thanks Jared & Gretchen.



I must be missing something critical >>>



I have a large employee review document (34 pages) with 23 sections. Each section has a feedback area with expanding text fields, each of the sections is in it's own positioned subform. I have grouped the sections (and subforms) on each page into a flowed subform. The document itself is saved as an Acrobat 7 Dynamic form. My problem...the sections do not Flow. The expanding text boxes work just fine, but they do over-run the sections below.



I have reviewed the comments above and I can get it to work with a single page document, just not with a large - long document, everything over runs.



Any ideas? You will be held in very high regard!



~dimwit

[Former Community Member]

Reagan,



No dimwitting allowed!! =)

What sounds like the problem, is that you have your subforms wrapped in one-too-many subforms. Try reducing what you have wrapped and keeping your "main" subform (the expanding one) to the "front", since this will ultimately be the one expanding and pushing other objects below it. (Check your hierarchy to see what you have). You don't want a positioned subform as your first level, with two expanding/flowing subforms tucked within it; all you'll get is that overlapping effect.



If you still have difficulties, email me at my address above and I'll be happy to send you some examples. Good luck!

[andrew_robbins1]

Thanks, I also found this very helpful!

[Former Community Member]

Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this post -- you have saved me! Actually I wish I had decided to look for a forum in the first place. After trying for quite awhile on my own, I finally contacted customer support. They even had me send them my file so they could look at it and figure out what was wrong -- they couldn't do it. I was beginning to think it wasn't possible to create a text box that grows with the data. This forum was my one last attempt -- I can't let things go until I'm CERTAIN I have exhausted all possibilities!



Thanks again.



Leslie

[mmickells]

I also have been fighting expanding text fields with Adobe Life Cycle. I am still having some issues. For Example, I have a header and footer in place that I'd like to always appear in their respective places. The last text field seems to not want to page break on it's own causing the text to cover the footer.

I have each of the text fields and sub-forms set to <Allow Page Breaks within Content> checked thinking this would allow the box to rollover to the next page automatically, but doesn't seem to be the case.

I also tried moving the footer to the <Master> page in hopes it would behave differently. Unfortunately, still the same issue. I'm certain I'm missing something, just not sure what. I'd like to keep the document clean looking despite having expanding text fields.

So, here's my question:

• How do I prevent the text field from over running my footer and auto page break onto the next page past the header?

Thanks in advance for any advice!