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Expanding Text Fields for a Table

jenn94
Registered: May 26 2009
Posts: 9
Answered

I have a couple of different in-house forms I have designed for rating employees performance (performance evaluation) and also a form used for Job Descriptions.

The Performance Evaluation form was a "positioned" interactive PDF, but now HR would like to have this document expand. I thought I had successfully designed this to do so, however, a couple of the fields are not correct and I can't not figure out why. During a "test exercise" the document works perfectly (as long as you enter in the same of amount of text for each field). It is when you skip fields are enter smaller of amount of text that the tables-boxes jump and skip pages. Some fields even revert back to overflowing off the page.

The Job Description document is very similiar - set up with expanding tables. I have compared the two documents and can not figure out why the Job Description document flows properfly, but the Performance document will not.

I would be happy to send the files along to an expert- any help would be greatly appreciated. I have only being using LiveCycle ES since last May so I am still new and have a lot more to learn.

Jenn

My Product Information:
LiveCycle Designer, Windows
thomp
Expert
Registered: Feb 15 2006
Posts: 4411
Getting the dynamic document flow just can be a real pain. Its very important that fields are properly divided into subforms and everything up and down the hierarchy is set to expand in the correct direction. Small overlaps can cause odd behavior, and Acrobat does not always do the right thing. So you have to be very very careful.

Unfortunately this kind of issue cannot be solved with a quick forum answer, it usually needs some time consuming analysis. You need a LiveCycle forms consultant. One company that I would think could help is Easel Solutions (www.easelsolutions.com), they do LiveCycle training.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Then most important JavaScript Development tool in Acrobat
[url=http://www.pdfscripting.com/public/34.cfm#JSIntro][b]The Console Window (Video tutorial)[/b][/url]
[url=http://www.acrobatusers.com/tutorials/2006/javascript_console][b]The Console Window(article)[/b][/url]

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
www.pdfscripting.com
Very Important - How to Debug Your Script