Custom Formats

In LiveCycle Desinger you enter the format into the appropriate fields for the field's object tab. In Acrobat forms you have to use the JavaScript RegExp object to describe the format and write the custom keystroke, validation and format scripts.

Thom Parker has an example of this custom format (automatic insertion of dashes in SS #) in his article on Formating Text Fields at:
http://www.acrobatusers.com/tech_corners/javascript_corner/tips/2006/formatting_text_fields/

Thom's script for the auto insert of the seperator needs to be changed for the the insertation of the seperator after the 3rd and 6th digits and the digits grouped in 3s. So the script for the "Custome Keystroke" becomes:

if(!event.willCommit)
{
/*
This script uses the same value merge and prgressive pattern as the previous field
but it first checks for the entry situations where a hyphen needs to be entered
before the next keystroke and then fixes up the change value
*/
if(/^\d{3}$/.test(event.value) && event.selStart == 3)
event.change = "-" + event.change; // insert after 3 numbers
else if(/^\d{3}-\d{3}$/.test(event.value) && event.selStart == 7)
event.change = "-" + event.change; // insert after 6 digits and "-"

// Merge entered data

var aRslt = event.value.split("");
aRslt.splice(event.selStart, event.selEnd - event.selStart, event.change);
var strTest = aRslt.join("");

// Test for valid entry
var rpat = /^\d{0,3}(-\d{0,3}(-\d{0,3})?)?$/;
event.rc = rpat.test(strTest);
} else {
// In the WillCommit phase we want to validate the whole thing exactly

var rpat = /^(\d{3}-\d{3}-\d{3})?$/;
event.rc = (event.value == "") || rpat.test(event.value);
}