Splitting a Person’s Name

Why not have them complete fields for the first and last name and then combine them for the Name_1 field.

I wish I could but they are at the end of the form I have. It would not be user friendly to do that. It not something I created and I can’t change it. The combined field “Name_1” is at the beginning of the form. My other thought was, if when you enter “Name_1” could a pop up automatically come up with 3 fields for (First name, MI, and Last Name) and once they hit tab on Last name the pop up would close and go to the next field? Those 3 fields would be hidden in the document, but could only be seen in the pop up. Thus being able to send the individual data to my “FirstNameRow1” & “LastNameRow1” Any thought could that be done?

Also those 3 fields would be able to combine them to "Name_1"? I know how complex splitting could be. I just thought having them separate from the beginning and then combining them for Name_1 would probably be easier. I just don’t know how to do that pop up box with the 3 fields. And what is the Javascript to combine them?

I don't see a practical way of knowing when a person has 2 first names or 2 family names, unless the latter are always separated by a hyphen.

You can use a product like arodialogs, look at the form wizard example, to gather the information and then you can use the sample function 'fillin' provided with the Acrobat full product distribution disk in the sample forms for the "PFN".The document level function:

// Concatenate 3 strings with separators where needed
function fillin(s1, s2, s3, sep) {

/*
Purpose: concatenate up to 3 strings with an optional separator

inputs:
s1: required input string text or empty string
s2: required input string text or empty string
s3: required input string text or empty string
sep: optional separator sting

returns:
sResult concatenated string
*/

// variable to determine how to concatenate the strings
var test = 0; // all strings null
var sResult; // re slut string to return

// force any number string to a character string for input variables
s1 = s1.toString();
s2 = s2.toString();
s3 = s3.toString();
if(sep.toString() == undefined) sep = ''; // if sep is undefined force to null

/*
assign a binary value for each string present
so the computed value of the strings will indicate which strings are present
when converted to a binary value
*/
if (s1 != "") test += 1; // string 1 present add binary value: 001
if (s2 != "") test += 2; // string 2 present add binary value: 010
if (s3 != "") test += 4; // string 3 present add binary value: 100

/* return appropriate string combination based on
calculated test value as a binary value
*/
switch (test.toString(2)) {

case "0": // no non-empty strings passed - binary 0
sResult = "";
break;

case "1": // only string 1 present - binary 1
sResult = s1;
break;

case "10": // only string 2 present - binary 10
sResult = s2;
break;

case "11": // string 1 and 2 present - binary 10 + 1
sResult = s1 + sep + s2;
break;

case "100": // only string 3 present - binary 100
sResult = s3;
break;

case "101": // string 1 and 3 - binary 100 + 001
sResult = s1 + sep + s3;
break;

case "110": // string 2 and 3 - binary 100 + 010
sResult = s2 + sep + s3;
break;

case "111": // all 3 strings - binary 100 + 010 + 001
sResult = s1 + sep + s2 + sep + s3;
break;

default: // any missed combinations
sResult = "";
break;
}

return sResult;
}

The custom calculation script to build a full name:

// All name fields concatenated, with some nice formatting.

function doCompleteName() {
var prefix = this.getField("name.prefix");
var first = this.getField("name.first");
var initial = this.getField("name.initial");
var last = this.getField("name.last");
var suffix = this.getField("name.suffix");
var nickname= this.getField("name.nickname");

var result1 = fillin(prefix.value, first.value, initial.value, " ");
if (nickname.value != "")
var result2 = fillin(last.value, suffix.value, "\"" + nickname.value + "\"", " ");
else
var result2 = fillin(last.value, suffix.value, "", " ");
event.value = fillin(result1, result2, "", " ");
}

doCompleteName();

The fillin function automatically adjust for missing data or null elements.