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Printing everything entered in an interactive form

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Former Community Member
I'm new to designer and I created a form in which a user will type in comments. My problem is, I'm getting a + in the lower right corner telling me there is additional information entered than is displaying. When I print this form the overflow information does not print. Is there a way to do this? Your help is appreciated.
12 Replies

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Former Community Member
Michelle,



What you would need to do is set your comments field to "expand to fit" in the layout tab. You would also need to have a flow layout so other fields flow as the comments field grows (wrap in a flowed subform). So everything that needs to flow will if that field expands.



I hope that makes sense to you.



Catherine

Adobe Systems

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Former Community Member
I have tried doing this but it isn't working. The whole subform is something I'm having trouble with. Can you recommend a book or somewhere I can learn how to start from the beginning with subforms?

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Former Community Member
Unfortunately, I don't know of any books on subforms in Designer but maybe a sample form will help you understand a little more about how things work.



Catherine was suggesting using a text field with its height set as "expandable" placed in a flowed subform such that if the text entered in the text field is too long to fit in its entirety, the text field would expand in height and push the rest of the form downward, thereby ensuring that all the text entered into the comment text field is visible when printed and the remainder of the form is still visible and unobstructed as well.



I've applied her suggestions to a sample form.



Because I knew I wanted an expandable Comments section in the middle of my form (such that when comments are entered, if they're too long to fit in the space initially provided, the Comments section would expand in height and move the bottom section downward), I started by creating 3 subforms on the page: TopSubform, CommentsSubform (in the middle) and BottomSubform. All these subforms were made to be as wide as the page subform and as tall as required to fit their respective fields.



In the middle subform (CommentsSubform), I placed a text field with these modifications: I removed the caption (using the Position property at the bottom of the Layout palette), made its height expandable (checked the
Expand to fit property on the Layout palette as well) and made it multi-lined (
Allow Multiple Lines property on the Object palette's Field tab).



In order to ensure that the text field in the CommentsSubform can expand in height and push the BottomSubform downwards, I then made the CommentsSubform's content
Flowed by using the Content property on the Object palette's Subform tab.



The last step, which brings this all together, was to give a
Flowed content to the page subform which contains all 3 subforms defined earlier. This way, when the text field in the CommentsSubform expands in height, the form's layout will reflow and cause the BottomSubform to shift downward to accommodate the length of the comment specified by the user. This is also the reason why I placed the top and bottom form fields in subforms as well because I wanted to
position these fields in precise locations. I could've placed all fields in the page subform, made the page subform flowed and have it work as well but I wouldn't have had any control over the position of the fields.



I hope this clarifies things about subforms and helps you fix your form as well.





Note:
The expandable comment text field doesn't expand as your entering text into it. It'll expand only once you tab or click out of it.



Stefan

Adobe Systems

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Former Community Member
I am so baffled. I just tried yet again using your response to me just trying something simple. Is there anyway for me to e-mail you my test document to see what I am doing wrong. I'm sure it is something very simple that I'm missing.

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Former Community Member
Sure! Just email your form to dev_info@adobe.com with the subject called, "Printing everything entered in an interactive form", and addressed to me (Stefan) and I'll have a look at it. Hopefully I can see where you're going wrong.



Stefan

Adobe Systems

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Former Community Member
Thanks to Niall O'Donovan I was able to take it to the next step. I knew it was something very simple. I needed to save as a Dynamic Form. Niall had lots of great tips, including how helpful Stefan and Chris are! I appreciate all your help. I'm sure there will be other hurdles along the way and I will be sure to continue to use the forums.

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Former Community Member
My Adobe designer 7.0 keeps crashing and i lose my work. Are there any downloads for upgrades?

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Former Community Member
Karen,



I'm sorry to hear you're having so many difficulties with Designer 7.0.



Aside from purchasing Acrobat 8.0 Professional and getting the newest version of Designer (8.0), you can upgrade to Designer 7.1 (which includes many bug fixes and some nice new features like "tables") for $29.00 US from the
Adobe Store.



Stefan

Adobe Systems



More answers on
FormBuilder.

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Former Community Member
I have existing forms where I did not place all of the subforms. I tried the subform steps listed above, but when I set the page subform to be flowed, all of my fields shift everywhere. Is there a way to fix an existing form to be dynamic or do you have to start from the beginning?

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Former Community Member
I am having that same problem. I have 3 fields I need to expand each with a text line above it. I have done all the steps outlined above but get everything all bunched up when I make the page subform flowed.



Also, it is necessary to do anything with the "Wrap in Subform" or "Unwrap in Subform"?



Thank you.



Sue

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Former Community Member
I am using Adobe Professional 7 with Adobe Designer 7 and our organisation will not be upgrading to 8 for some time so I have to get 7 to work.

I have downloaded Stefan's ExpandableCommentsSection.pdf, opened it in Designer and attempted to copy it but my expansion field doesn't work. Stefan's form works on my machine but my forms don't.

Pam_A sent me:

www.adobe.com/devnet/livecycle/articles/7 Questions Flowing.pdf and again, it works. I've looked at all the sub forms and fiddled about with having them positioned and flowing. I've tried changing binding from Normal to Global. I can't figure it out. I've read copious amounts of incomprehensible help screens and forum questions and answers and am none the wiser. Please help.

Marion

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Former Community Member
I've just had a brain wave! You have to save the form as a Dynamic PDF Form File!!!! So File => Save As => Click on the file type drop down arrow and choose PDF Form File.

I can't believe it! I've been trying to get this to work for weeks!



Good luck and thanks!



Marion