Inviisible data in form fields

I've seen a couple of other cases of this, first make sure that you don't have a fill color of white associated with the field. Also, make sure that the field is sized so that the text can appear -- this is important if the forms overflow indicator has been turn off in the Preferences for forms.

Did you create the form in Acrobat? Can you see the data if you export it?

The fields have no fill color, but even if they did, why would this happen when some people use the form and not when others do? Also, although I don't know about the overflow indicator, the fields are of adequate size to accept complete responses.

Yes, the form was created in Acrobat; and yes, I can see the data if I export it. However, that isn't a solution as we need this to be an "interactive" form. One user must complete certain sections and then send it to another user who completes additional sections and returns it to the original user who completes yet another section before sending it to a third user, etc. If I export the form (Forms > Manage Form Data > Export Data) the resulting document does not have the formulas from the original document.This is really frustrating, and I'm under a deadline; so if anyone has an answer to this I would really appreciate your help.

There can be real differences between Operating Systems, product type (Acrobat vs Reader) and version differences. If you can provide the information about the:

For the creation of the form:
The Operating system and version
The Acrobat product and version used to create the form
If LiveCycle Designer or Acrobat was used to create the form
Were any special right applied to the form

For the filling in system:
The Operating system and version
The Acrobat product and version used to fill in the form
How the form was returned

For viewing the returned form:
The Operating system and version
The Adobe product and version for viewing the returned form

If all of that has to be controlled, this is never going to work.

Creation of form:
Windows XP Version 2002
Adobe Acrobat Professional Version 8.1.7
The form was first created as a Microsoft Word 2007 document and then converted to Acrobat
The final version was given password security, allowing printing at High Resolution, and restricting changes to filling in form fields and signing existing signature fields. Usage Rights in Adobe Reader were also enabled.

Filling in:
The operating systems and versions as well as the Acrobat products and versions are unknown to me. They could be all over the place.

Viewing:
Currently forms are returned by email, usually Outlook, but not necessarily. If we can resolve this problem, they will go into a SharePoint site.
Those viewing the returned forms are on Windows SP Version 2002 and Adobe Acrobat Professional (the version may vary).

The only time I have seen that happen is when a value was set on a field that was marked as "Field is used for file selection".

I suppose this could also happen with some kind of weird Format action (when you click in the field, you would see what the user entered, when you get out, the formatting happens).

Jim Healy
FormRouter, Inc.
Check out our FREE Advanced Acroform Toolset:
http://www.formrouter.com/tools

The problem only occurs in text fields. The form also has check boxes, combo boxes, and radio buttons that work fine.

The text fields are set up as follows:
Visable, not read only, not required, not locked
No border or fill color
Some are multi-line; most are not
No actions
No format category
No field validation
Some fields are calculated, some are not

Sometimes the forms are returned and everything is fine; sometimes they are returned with data in text fields invisible until clicked on.

I assume that you checked the properties of the ones returned to you and the original and they are the same still? Also, if you go into the JS console (with one of the returned ones) and do a getField and check the value and the defaultValue, what do you get?

Jim Healy
FormRouter, Inc.
Check out our FREE Advanced Acroform Toolset:
http://www.formrouter.com/tools

The form is password protected, and properties are the same on the returned versions. You've lost me on the next one - I don't know what a JS console or a getField is. Unfortunately, I'm a grant administrator not a technology person.

In one of the returned ones that has the problem, in acrobat pro, hit control+j, in there type:
getField("your field name here").value;

Highlight that text and hit control+enter. Record the answer.

Then do:
getField("your field name here").defaultValue;
Highlight that text and hit control+enter. Record the answer.

Obviously, you need to get one of your real field names and not use your field name here (unless you happened to name a field that). :)

Jim Healy
FormRouter, Inc.
Check out our FREE Advanced Acroform Toolset:
[url]http://www.formrouter.com/tools[/url]

O.K. When I hit control+j I get the JavaScript Debugger, is that what it should be?
I typed as you instructed into a text box just beneath where it says "View:" and there is a drop-down list with "Console" selected. (Nope. no fields named "field name" in this form.)

This is what resulted for both value and for default.Value
missing ) after argument list
1:Console:Exec
undefined

we have the same problem. Filled form in Adobe Acrobat 8, 'SOMETIMES' the filled text data is invisible when you open it in Acrobat 6 or Acrobat 9. It is so weird.

Thanks to this forum.

Since many different systems can fill in the forms, you need to know specific information about the remote users to information about their installations. There could be a local font issue or problem with a given version of Reader.

Your field name has to go in quotes.

Jim Healy
FormRouter, Inc.
Check out our FREE Advanced Acroform Toolset:
http://www.formrouter.com/tools

I had a support call with this problem today. The form previewed perfectly in Mac Previewer and was created in Acrobat 8. In Acrobat 9 Pro on a Mac the form opened with all fields blank. If the cursor was put into any field, that specific field would show its contents, but only one field at a time. The user emailed me the form and on Acro 9 Pro (9.3.1) on Win I reproduced the error.

The solution was as described above, the background color was not set to none. HOWEVER, the gui already indicated that the background color was none. The fix was to reset the background color value for all fields and save the document. We also noticed that text fields all had a fixed-sized font, that "auto" font size was lost for multiline fields and they'd also been switched to scrolling (to match the fixed font size?)

Unfortunately, I don't think you can fix this in reader, but in Acro Pro:

Forms: Edit Form Fields
Select all fields: Ctrl-A (Cmd-A on Apple) Note that if you have some fields that should have different background color, like a red signature field or somesuch, you should ctrl-click (cmd-click) to deselect that/those fields so they are not updated in this process.
Get Info on fields: Ctrl-I (Cmd-I)
Appearance Tab
Fill Color: Set to None (red-diagonal). It is important to positively set this, even if it shows this state already.
Close dialog
Unselect the fields by clicking on background of doc (to prevent accidental deletion ;^)
Forms: Close form editing mode

IF you have any fields which are now overflowing but they should be auto-scaling the font to fit,
Go back into form editing mode, select (ctrl-select or Cmd-select for multiple) the scrolling fields, get info (ctrl-I). In the Text field area check the Font Size drop-down and "Auto" will be at the top of the numeric list. You may have to go into the Options tab and deselect "Scroll long text" Close out the dialog and exit form editing mode. If dialog is entitled "Field Properties" and not "Text Field Properties" you will not have the Options tab (only General/Appearance/Actions). This is because you have more than one field type, one or more non-Text Field type, selected.

Hope this helps someone with the same problem!

First, thank to everyone who has chimed in on this. At least I know now that I'm not the lone wolf with this problem.

To jimhealy: repeating your instructions but quoting the field name, I get this:
missing ; before statement
1:Console:Exec
Undefined

Wasn't sure what that meant, but I did it again adding the ";" in several places and always get "Undefined" as the response


To: gkaiseril:
I have approximately 1500 users across a university campus, some on Macs, some on PCs and who knows what version of anything they are using. If all form users have to be on the same platform with the same version of Acrobat, and all settings exactly the same, then the whole idea of Adobe forms is useless in most circumstances.

To csmarkham:
Amazingly, reseting the background color to none (even though it was already appearing as none in the field properties) renders the data in the text fields visable!! I have a question though, is this something that will have to be done each time we receive an "invisible" form, or if the background color is reset on the master form will it be a permanent fix? I guess I'll find out by trying it.

Again, thank you everyone!

Clearly not all users are having this problem, but for those that have a problem one needs to identify what the problem or problems are and how that problem or problems can be fixed.

That could include making sure the font used in a form are the most commonly distributed fonts and custom fonts are not used. Maybe your institution would have to have some fonts available for distribution to the students, faculty and staff. Or maybe whole font sets will need to be embedded into the forms.

With detailed information it is hard to figure out what is happening and provide Adobe with this additional informat so they can address the issue.

@csmarkham - Do you know if setting those properties via Javascript will correct the problem? If he (or others who are better with Javascript) has more documents come in like that, it would probably be easier to just use a script to fix the problems.

Jim Healy
FormRouter, Inc.
Check out our FREE Advanced Acroform Toolset:
http://www.formrouter.com/tools

This issue can go beyond the form fields.

http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?id=24702

I've been experiencing this often and posted in another thread. I have begun doing as a quick fix as msmarkham suggests. But interestingly, I have had them all set to no fill, then this would happen, and would do the select all and changed them all to a "white" background then the text appeared. I have changed all my forms to a white background. And all was well. Now I just got in one that was invisible unless clicked on, and then had to change it all to "no fill"! Just the opposite of what was working for a long time.... So if one "no fill" doesn't work change it to a white fill. Or if the white fill doesn't work, change it to a 'no fill'. Not a fix but at least then you can read the documents. Truly crazy making and it is making my bosses a little mad at me since I did the forms.

This is a big issue to us. Think about in this case, clients fill the form (by ver 8.x.x for example) and submit it out. The clients don't know some fields are invisible because they do visible for them. But the people who use the form may open from any other Acrobat version (like ver 7.x or 9.x). These people don't know these invisible fields have been filled, then they make wrong decision. I don't know if Adobe knew this issue. I used to have support program and can talk to them directly. But know I don't know what I can do.

We are seeing a similar problem with an Acrobat form. This is a single-page PDF with several text fields and check boxes. It was created on Windows XP using Acrobat 8 Pro and saved with rights-enabled so that users could save the form data. Typically, completed forms are emailed to us. This particular version of the form has been in use for about a year, has been used by over 100 people, and we haven't had any problems with it until recently...

About a week ago, we received some completed forms via email from someone using a Mac and Acrobat Pro 9. When opened on Windows XP with Acrobat Pro 9.3.1, the text fields all appear to be empty, but some of the check boxes show up as checked. If we print it out, the printed form appears the same as it does on screen; the text fields are blank. However, if you click in some of these text fields with the mouse cursor (hand), text magically appears. When you click in a second text field, the text in the first text field disappears and the text in the second text field appears. This occurs whether you are using Acrobat Pro 9.3.1 or Adobe Reader 9.3.1.

The text field properties of one of these magical fields shows that the Border Color is nothing, the Fill Color is nothing, the Font Size is 12, the Text Color is blue, and the Font is Times Italic. If I change ANY of these properties, then the text appears and stays visible. So, the workaround for this "bug" is to perform a select all and then change, say, the text color. No problemo, but why does this happen?

Since the problem PDFs came from Mac-land, I thought that maybe it was a font issue between Macs and Windows. Additional spelunking shows that our original PDF contains the embedded fonts: Wingdings (TT), Arial (TT), Arial (Type 1), and Times New Roman (Type 1). The disappearing-text PDF contains the embedded fonts: Wingdings (TT), Arial (TT), Helvetica (TT), and ZapfDingbatsITC (TT). Hmm, what happened to the Times font? All of our PDF's text fields are some flavor of Times (roman, italic, bold) and that is the only place in the PDF where the Times font is used. So I am suspicious that this might be a font issue and Acrobat is not properly substituting Times New Roman on Windows for Times Roman on the Mac or some such.

It would be GREAT to get this resolved, as the people who process our incoming data thought that we were being sent blank forms. When they told me about the problem, I discovered the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't text. They were going to delete the forms, which would have been a Bad Thing.

Can you post a sample file? Or, email me through the link below my avatar?

It appears that the issue revolves around forms filled out on MAC OS X where the Mac OSX's Preview.app isn't writing any appearance into the text fields nor it is setting the proper flags.
So, you can use Joel Geraci's [url=http://blogs.adobe.com/pdfdevjunkie/script_to_fix_mac_osx_previewa.php]Script to Fix Mac OSX Preview.app Form Fill and Save[/url] to correct the problem.

Thanks, the script resolves our problem. Note that it doesn't work with Adobe Reader since it wants to update the properties of form fields, which is not allowed with Adobe Reader. That may be an issue for some folks.

Hi all,

I have found a bandaid solution for this problem - see
http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?pid=72165#p72165

Cheers,
Jo

I have been having the same problem with a form created in Acrobat Pro 9 (Mac). When some of the forms have been returned some field input is invisible unless I click in that particular field. The original font for all fields was Helvetica. But now for some reason Helvetica does not appear in my Suitcase Fusion 2 font list. If I edit a field and change the font to Arial, the entry displays.

There are many copies of the form outstanding now, so changing the original will not help. Is there a way to change the font of all fields on a received form?

Also, I notice that this problem only occurs with some submitters; for others all entries appear as expected.

In the future, is there a way to set form fields so that it does not matter which font is used?

Thanks.

It is not at all a problem relating to which font is used, it is a problem with the Preview application on the mac. It has rather limited support for forms and in fact corrupts them, resulting in the behavior described here. For an update to Joel's script (that works with all field types and Reader) and a bit more background info, see: Correcting PDF Form Field Appearances after Saving with Preview on the Mac

Thanks. I'll check into Joel's script.

However, I have not been viewing received forms with Preview; always Acrobat 9 Pro. And the most recent problematic form was, I am pretty sure, completed on a Windows computer.

Any other suggestions? Suggested best font to use?

New info. The most recent problematic forms were indeed completed on a Mac in Preview. One problem solved. Thanks!

The problem is not what you use to view the document, it's with what the folks who are saving the form are using.

Check. Thanks.

Any update on the issue?

our problem is a funny one:
created the form using livecycle.
still using the trial version of adobe acrobat X pro.

All the forms I've created work fine apart from one. It worked and then suddenly we've started receiving forms that were filled in but could only see the data when we click in the actual field. As soon as we click in another field, the data disappears.

I've changed all the font to Arial. still no luck.

This is getting really annoying. I've already bought the licence but now regret it (one of the form I created contains a table and could not find anywhere on adobe tutorials - if someone knows, please tell me - how to export the data in a csv in columnar format (so i bought a fantastic tool called A-pdf to excel) which does the trick for just 30$.

I find Adobe products cumbersome and badly explained and would definitely not recommend it to anyone unless you have plenty of time on your hands. There are some great products out there at a fraction of the price which do the job just as well if not better (go and figure out the 500 limitations for a form!!!)

See Post #28 above. Script works great.

The issue is with users insisting on or not using MacIntosh Preview. If they use preview, then you will need to "fix" the returned PDF using Script to Fix Mac OSX Preview.app Form Fill and Save.