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Why is Subform flowing into text below?

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Level 2

Hi!  I am a newbie ready to tear my hair out. Is anyone able to help me with subforms?  I'm trying to create a dynamic form that has multiple text boxes that must be flowable, yet not overlap the text below it.  I wrapped the text field and its text box in subform.

First of all, why does the wrapping keep going away? I see the little yellow icon with exclamation point in the upper right corner of each box, but when I right click on the text box, it says "wrap in subform" after I just did it a minute ago? Is there a simple way to know which fields are already subforms?

I went to the Object Palette for each text box and I have the following settings:

     Subform: flowed

     flow direction: top to bottom

     Allow page breaks within content

I did that for each text box below. When I preview it and test it, I enter quite a bit of text in the first box. I move my cursor to the next text box field, and the text I just entered flows over the next box? I've tried everything and it doesn't help! The 2 nd box doesn't move down to accomodate the text in the previous box.

How do I upload this form so that you can perhaps see what I'm doing wrong?

Lastly, maybe I'm wasting my time with this form software package?  Once the form is created, will the user be able to do a spell check for the data they just entered?

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated?

7 Replies

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Level 4

I can think of a few possibilities... the most likely in my mind is that you forgot to set all containing subform elements to flowed

as well. That includes the page 1 subform.

If that's not it, also check to ensure that you have saved the form as dynaimc instead of static.. let me know if that fixes it for you.

- Scott

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Level 4

Sorry, I missed your last question... once saved, when a user makes a spelling error, it is underlined in red. Right clicking brings up suggestions. You can also run a spell check against the entire form. No problem there. As for the uploading, sorry, but I've never had to do it before, so someone else will have to help you there.

- Scott

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Level 2

Thanks, Scott. I hope you are patient, since I have alot of questions.

First, yes my form is dynamic.

Second, I decided to remove all of my subforms, and start from scratch. I found the Hierarchy window and right clicked to find some subform options. What is a subform set and subform choice set? When do I use each?

I highlighted the group of fields and wrapped all of them subform.   Then I went to each text box, right clicked and marked them as wrap in subform, then went to each object palette, and marked them as content flowed from top to bottom, allow page breask within content, expand to fit for height.  When I test the first , same thing.  What am I doing wrong. Can you take a look at the file?

Is there any good book on Live Cycle? This is very frustrating!

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Level 2

Whoa, Scott!  I just found how to wrap Page 1 and make it flowable, but now the entire form is left justified, and all my fields moved around.  Yet, when I tested the form, the 2 text boxes worked perfectly. The box expanded and the text didn't flow into the box below it.

What do I do to correct the fields that I want to remain in place?

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Level 4

Hello again,

Lets start with your first questions...

The subform set and choice subform sets are often confusing, and can mostly be avoided. Just so you know, though:

A subform set allows you to group multiple subforms together. This is so that, if you are merging data into the form, you can control which groups of subforms are visible. For example, lets say you have a subform containing header details, and a second repeating subform that is to be merged with data. If there is no data for that subform set, you can hide the entire thing.

FYI, you can do this with standard subforms that are nested as well.

A choice subform set is very similar, but it allows you to apply additional conditional logic to show/hide subforms within.

As I've said, I find them more of a distraction than anything, and I have never needed to use them. I do all my work within regular subforms.

Alright; Part 2...

The reason it went all left-aligned is because you set the content of the subform (the page, as in page 1,  is just a top-level subform) to flowed. What this does is it takes everything within the subform and stacks it all one on top of the other in the order that they are shown in the heirarchy panel.

Now, this is often not how you want it to look, so you often will have to nest a positioned subform within the flowed subform. Lets say that you want two single-line textboxes to be side by side, followed by an expandable text box. If you just flow the page containing it all, they will stack on top of eachother... What I usally do is to have the page set to 'positioned', then I set up how I want it all to look. When I see a group of control that will have their position altered if I set the page to flowed, I select them all, then right-click and select wrap in subform. This subform, by default will take the paren'ts state, in this case it'll be static... then, when I set the parent page to flowed, all of the fields contained within the positioned subform will stay in place.

I know that I did a poor job of describing the last bit... if you send me your email, I can send you a simple sample.

let me know if you have any more questions.

- Scott

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Level 2

My email address is:     cherstein@nautilus-ins.com


Thanks for your help, though your explanation is difficult for me to understand. How long have you been doing this? I am feeling pretty dumb about now.

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Level 4

It took me about a month to really feel like I knew what I was doing. I've been using it for about a year now. It'll take me a few minutes to make the sample, but I'll send it asap.

- Scott

P.S. I've written down your email address... if you want, feel free to edit your post to remove it now.