Strangeness with Auto font size in Pro 8 and Standard 7

This is kind of convoluted, so please bear with me...

I've been using Acrobat Pro 8.1.3 to create forms. Most of the office computers have an install of Acrobat Standard 7.0.9.

Fields created with fontsize=auto, no multiple lines, no rich text act strangely when they are opened in Standard 7.0.9. Specifically, they lag out or stop allowing more characters at about the point that the font starts to shrink. This happens more often with certain characters than others...for example, if I try to fill a field with the letter "k", it stops accepting more characters as soon as it starts to shrink the font size. But, if I try to add a different character, it continues more-or-less smoothly. It's very weird.

It may be useful to note that when these forms are opened with Standard version 7.0.0, they work fine. One computer has version 7.0.8, and the same strangeness occurs. This happens with 7.0.8, 7.0.9, and 7.1.0, when opening forms created in Pro 8 and 9.

If I change the fields to multi-line, the problem goes away...but then I lose the consistency of initial fontsize that I want to keep.

This is driving me crazy, and I can't find any other mention of this on the forums. Can anyone help me?

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UPDATE 21NOV08: I used a colleagues Acrobat 9 Pro to make a similar form, and the same problem occurs when it's opened with Standard version 7.0.8 and 7.0.9, but not on 7.0.0. Since the IS department around here is only offering version 7.0.9, there's nothing much I can do about it. And, the only thing I can think of that might fix it - making the forms in Acrobat Pro version 7 - isn;t possible, because there are onyl two of us with Pro; me, with version 8, and my colleague, with version 9.

Perhaps I can get a copy of version 7 for free, since I already have the later version?

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UPDATE 24NOV08: So, I was able to track down someone else who has Pro version 7. She created a form for my just like mine and sent it to me. Guess what? THE SAME PROBLEM! Which leads me to believe that there's something inherently wrong with Reader version 7, when it comes to autosizing fonts. I've exhausted all of my ideas, and am about at my wits end. ANY help would be appreciated...