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going back to a page/section previously viewed

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Level 3

Hi there,

I have a large form spanning over many pages which is flowable - so it can grow in size depending on the data inputted. Because of this I have managed to create buttons which can print sections rather than page numbers, which works well. because of the size of the form, I have placed all these print buttons on one page at the end of the form - think of it as a table of contents with buttons instead of page numbers if that makes sense. I'll call this the 'printing section'

The problem with this however, is that if the user goes to the 'printing section' to print a certain section they may get lost so I need to create a button that will send then back to the last page they viewed. this could be page 20 or page 40 or whatever, it just depends on where they were before they clicked the button that sent them to the 'printing section'.

Is there a way of doing this?

6 Replies

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Level 3

I've changed my thinking on this (and so I have a new problem!). My worry was that in terms of usability I just didn't like the idea of a user jumping from one page to another in the form without being able to return - though do let me know if this is even possible!

Instead I've decided to ask about a dialogue box which will give options. This is a new problem, so please read here:

creating a print dialogue box with options

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Level 7

I know you have moved off of this topic but wanted to say I think the issue would be that a user scrolling through pages would not have a mechanism to return to some page. If you used a button on a page to jump to the last page you could do it. For example, I am on page 12 and want to go to the last page Page 40. If there is a navigation button on page 12 that jumps me to page 40, I could have a back button that would take me back to page 12. Not the same as in Acrobat or HTML where you have the concept of going to a different URL but similar. To achieve this I would have a "Goto last Page" button on each page. The user clicks on this and this would set an invisible field on the last page to that pages reference. When the user clicks on the back button it would use that invisible field as the direction point back. You can use a setFocus command to do the return.

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Level 3

Thanks for the reply mouselander.

I think I get where you're coming from. The issue I have is that I don't want a print button to appear within the body of the form (as it can, and does, expand dramatically when the user enters text into the fields). My initial solution was to put a print icon in the footer of each master page (each master page is a section of the form, and there are about 8 of these sections). In doing this I can reference a go back to section button in the 'printing section' but I think the best I could do would be to go to the start of the previous section rather than a particular page.

I could be wrong here, so do let me know!

Another solution I thought of would be some kind of code (alas I'm learning here, so bear with me) that, in plain english was attached to the print button that said before going to the 'printing section' make a note of the last text field/button etc. to be clicked into and then have the back button set focus and return to this. It's not perfect as there is a possibility that the user didn't click into anything.

I guess what I was hoping for was that as you scroll through the pages you can see the page number change through acrobat's main window. So in my head I was thinking would there be a way on the fly to monitor this and for the coding to effectively go back to the last page number visited prior to the user going to the 'printer section'.

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Level 7

"Another solution I thought of would be some kind of code (alas I'm learning here, so bear with me) that, in plain english was attached to the print button that said before going to the 'printing section' make a note of the last text field/button etc. to be clicked into and then have the back button set focus and return to this."


Yes this approach is what I was suggesting. When the user gets to the bottom of the page in the footer or wherever you put the print button, that click action could record a page or field location and return the user. You would put that into a hidden field and reference it in your print button on the last page.

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Level 3

ahhh, okay, didn't think that was possible. Like I said, I'm relatively new to this and have been getting by with the good help of others and the in-built editor which is limited to say the least. Is this something you could give me a steer on?

Thanks for all your help - greatly appreciated!

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Level 7

I think that is how most of us learn on here. There is a way it  can be done. When you get back to it let me know and I will see if I can help you out.