Autosize Text within a Multiline Field - Initial Font Size

Is anyone able to help with this, I have a similar problem.

I have a livecycle text field set to size '0' so that the text will downsize should the text not fit into the space provided.

However I would like the initial font size to be set to 10 and then downsize should the text not fit in the field so that the text does not look disparate to the rest of the fields on the page. At the moment the text is huge when I only have a few characters in that field.

Yes, this can be done, but it's tricky. It's easier to do in LiveCycle because there is greater control over the font size, but it's still tricky. Both LiveCyle and AcroForms have a property to indicating when a text field is full. In AcroForms its "event.fieldFull". So you can set the initial font size, and then when the field gets full change to font size to Auto.

Now here are the problems.
1) Once the font size is set to auto the field full indicator will always be false. So you have to treat this like a state machine, i.e., make specific sticky transitions between Auto and Non-Auto modes.

2) The actual font size won't change until the focus leaves the field, which means it can't be changed on the fly. The best you could do is to force a focus change to another field, and then bounce the focus back to the text field. The problem is figuring out some way to do this and keep the cursor position where the user expects it, so they aren't freaked out in the middle of typing.

So, it's not that it not doable. It's that it can't be done well, at least not in an AcroForm. I suspect it can be done much easier in a LC form.

Thom Parker
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OK so im still struggling on this:

my field is called description_t1 and the user does not actually type into the field itself. the field is automatically populated via a database connection - so be aware there are many instances of this field.

What I would like to do and I hope someone can give a written example is as follows.

When the form loads check each instance of the field, [b]if the text does not fit in the space provided then change the fontsize for that particular instance to 0 otherwise keep that fontsize at 8.5.[/b]

therefore no need to click out of the field and click etc, just simply to check whether the text fits in the space provided. I have NOT set a character limit, but I can set a suitable character limit should it be required.

Anyone?

How do I set auto resize in Livecycle?

I found answer to my question. It is just put 0 as a font size. But, I cannot do this when I have a font pallete docked at the top of my window. I need to go to Window>Font. This will open a new font pallete. And now I can change the font size to 0. Work like a charm.thanks.

Well, what if a maximum fonts size it set (8 pt for instance) and changes to "0" if the text is longer than a given number of characters? Is this possible to write in Javascript?

Ardid

For PDF forms, (that's the ones using AcroForms, done in Acrobat), it is a piece of cake…

In the Format event evaluate the length of event.value, and if it is above your threshold, set the event.target.fontSize to 0, otherwise to your stanard size (8 in the example).

You may make it even more elaborate, by also counting in the number of carriage return characters.

Hope this can help.

Max Wyss.