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Filling Out Forms

To fill out an Acrobat PDF form, you move the pointer inside a field on the form and click. You'll see the I-beam, which tells you that the form is active and that you can start to type. Other types of fields using buttons, checkmarks, and so on show variations of the Hand tool, such as a pointing hand. Click an option to select it, and then press Tab (or Shift+Tab) to go to the next (or previous) field. When you have finished, click the Submit button, if it exists. Alternatively, you can print the form, or export the data to a separate file, depending on your rights.

Other Preferences for Forms

Acrobat provides several other preferences for forms. Try some of the optionsyou may find that they increase your form's processing speed and make working with forms simpler.

Choose Edit > Preferences > Forms (on Mac, Acrobat > Preferences > Forms). The top portion of the resulting dialog contains a set of forms preferences:

• Automatically calculate field values
  Calculates the content of numerical fields when you enter the data. Often this feature is programmed into the form.

• Show focus rectangle
  Shows which form field is currently active (or has focus). This is a very useful preference especially in forms that have narrow fields or a great deal of information on one page (Figure 70b)

  Figure 70b. When you move your pointer over a field you automatically see which field is active when the focus rectangle option is used. In the figure, the field showing "14" is below my pointer and outlined.

  
  

  

• Keep forms data temporarily available on disk
  Retains the information you add to a form online. This is a useful preference if you fill in forms over the Internet; you can't store the data permanently, but you can reuse it during a session.

• Show text field overflow indicator
  Displays a plus sign when you try to type too much text into a text field. The number of characters allowed in a field is defined by the form's designer (Figure 70c)

  Figure 70c. You can instantly see if a user has typed more text into a field than you allowed in the form field's design when you specify using the text overflow indicator

  
  

  

• Always hide forms document message bar
  Hides the message bar that displays by default when you open a PDF form. Use this setting when you work with forms regularly; closing the message bar gives you a bit more room on the screen (Figure 70d).

  Figure 70d. Save precious screen real estate by hiding the form's document message bar

  
  

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• Highlight Color
  Displays color for form field backgrounds and borders when your user clicks the Show Highlight check box on the Document Message Bar. Click the color swatches in the Highlight Color section of the preference pane to choose colors that highlight both field backgrounds, as well as required fields. The color appears in required form fields only when a user submits the form. The fields in a form are highlighted in whatever color you specify in the preferences (Figure 70e).

  Figure 70e. Set a preference to automatically color all the fields you can use in a formnow you can clearly see how much work you have to do!

  
  

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These are useful preferences when you work with a lot of forms and find screen glare hard on your eyes, or when you work with large forms and want to see how much work you have left. You can use colored backgrounds for the form fields regardless of how the form is designed; the form's designer doesn't have to assign a color.