Subforms and flowed text fields

I second this request, and have found several people looking for this solution in the Acrobat form section. I have seen many post telling people that LiveCycle can make dynamic field sizes, based on contant, but have not figured out how to do this finction....

Any help would be great

Hi sgfred & mmoxley,The key to creating the flowable text fields in a LiveCycle Designer form are that they be placed in a sub-form and the form must be saved as Dynamic. A sub-form is required so that as the text field inside it grows it does not over-write other objects below it on the form. But you must be sure the hierachy of your form is set up correctly for this to happen.
Have you had a look at the Dynamic Interactive Purchase Order form example included with LCD? You can find it by going to the Welcome screen, choose the Explore Sample Forms, Purchase Order, Dynamic Interactive, Forms, then open the PurchaseOrder.pdf. At the bottom of that form is a "Comments" button. If you click on that you can enter as much text in that box as you want. When you click out of it you will see all the text and all of it will print, even if it makes the form grow to more than one page. Take a look at the properties of that sub-form and look at the hierachy to see how the objects are layed out. Select the "purchaseOrder" page and look at the how the options are set in the Object and Layout pallets, then look at those same properites for the "txtComments" text field.

Hope that helps,

Dimitri
Windjack Solutions
www.windjack.com

Thanks Dimitri. After reading your post and playing here is what I did

select all the elements before the field that you want to expans and then use insert->wrap in sub form. Make this sub form content: positioned in the objects tab.do the same for any fields BELOW the filed of interest. Then select the field you want to expand. Use insert->wrap in sub form and set this toIn the object tab set the following:
content: flowed
select the multiple lines
Then in the Layout tab, expand to fit as you see fit, but I assume expand Y.

Now, save file as Dynamic. After it is saved, you can preview and see the dynamic nature

In these how tos it seems to miss out an important point.

All of these changes will do nothing unless the initial subform set up is set to flow content. The other non flowing items can be set to 'position' but the parent of all of them (default 'Subform1') [b]must[/b] be set as 'flow content' otherwise the all important option to 'Allow Page Breaks within content' will be disabled.

Unfortunately this means that if you have 'flow' subforms on a page the whole page may need empty subforms/fields to help space out the positioned subforms within them.

If I'm wrong I would be very happy to be corrected and these subforms have been a curse to me!

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I struggled through the whole subform thing by arranging everything in the hierarchy window and then creating a series of nested subforms for each page of my four-page form. I trawled through the forums to work out how to deal with things like the flow issues and saving the document as a dynamic form. The thing that really helped me was when I grouped all of the items under a sub-form. Otherwise all the formatting fell apart as soon as I set the sub-form type to flow. The next problem I came across was that the tabbing order took on a life of its own. I found a thread on this site that also helped resolve this issue. It feels like a baptism of fire, but I now have a beautifully functioning form that does everything just how I wanted it to, and my client is thrilled!
Thanks to all for your help,
Samantha

I have a similar problem with flowing subforms on multiple pages. I have read a lot and reviewed the help samples, but I am still a rookie. My form is a 5 page employment application. On the 2nd page there are multiple expandable text fields. The entire form is in a subform set to flowing, page break checked, as well as the individual text fields are in a subform set to positioned so the formatting does not get messed up. The expanding textfields are also in flowing subforms with page breaks checked. The expansion of the text fields work great, I am able to see and print everything the end user enters in those fields and it pushes down without overwriting any of the fields below. But the problem I experience is when it expands beyond the current page. Instead of expanding onto the next page it instead creates a new page with the expanded data.

For example:
Page 2 text field goes beyond page 2. Inserts a new blank page between page 2 and page 3. The field's data that could not be displayed on page 2 is now on the inserted page. Page 3 is left alone.

Is there a way to get page 2's expanded data on page 3?

I can even email you the form to look at my Hierarchy if you like. This is the last issue with my form, hopefully it is possible.

Another note:
Is it possible to create a text field with horizontal lines for the end users that hand write the form, while allowing the users who fill out the form electronic text not being crossed out by those lines, more preferably the electronic just appears inbetween the horizontal line?

Figured it out. The problem was, under pagination, I needed to have my page subforms that are created for my pages to be “following previous”, it was defaulted to “top of next page”.

But still wondering about the horizontal line issue in my previous post.

I need some help. I'm doing a form where the user needs to be able to fill large amounts of info and the text box needs to expand as it goes. I'm placing a subform then the text field and setting the lay out to multiple lines and expand to fit but when I try it the box won't expand and a black plus sign comes up. I want to be able to print it....Can somebody please point the answer step by step please?

Giselle.

Hello everybody, basically i have the same problems in creating a form which expands to the second page when the writen text reaches the bottom of page 1. is it possible that someone can show me a document which is already made so that i can have a look at it how its done.

thanks in advance

anselm

btw: i use adobe acrobat 8.0

:)

greetz
anselm

hey...i need your help regarding subforms.....
Name and address of the designated partners (The user should be able to add all sub fields under this field upto a maximum of 5 times)
(In case of more than 5 designated partners, attach details of such designated partners in a separate sheet as an attachment)

I am working on a form and on the end of page 1 these fields are there...on which this content has to be repeated on click of add button.so how can solve this problem...please tell which and where subform is to be placed.thank you....
it would be really a great help..............

This is a reply to Anselm,

Have a look at the Dynamic Interactive Purchase Order sample shipping with Designer. It is located in
[installDir]\EN\Samples\Forms\Purchase Order\Dynamic Interactive\Forms.

1. In Designer, preview the form
2. Click the Add Comments button, the comments field will appear below the button
3. Type several lines of text, enough to overflow to a new page
4. Tab out and the field will expand

Hélène