Vanishing calculation formulas

I think most of use use a simple text editor for an external JS editor plug-in for Acrobat, since Acrobat JS is very limited and simple to code.

The ESTK toolkit editor seems to be a significantly more sophisticated than Acrobat's built in editor. I don't know that there is a connection with my vanishing formulas and the ESTK text editor, but the ESTK is distributed by Adobe. I found it in this folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Adobe\Adobe Utilities\ExtendScript Toolkit CS4\ExtendScript Toolkit.exe" after finding the Java Script Tools Guide published by Adobe in 2008. I like it, my only complaint being that it is slow to open.

Acrobat can use many types of text editors, just look under the application's preferences. In fact if you use one of the more common ones, like TextPad, Acrobat will fill in any necessary application parameters to integrate the editor into Acrobat.

The ESTK toolkit is for CS scripting and Acrobat, even though it is included, is not fully integrated and synced with the updating of the CS suites.

I am just suggesting what works for some of us.

Thank you, I understand and am not at all taking issue with your guidance. I'be been using ESTK with Acrobat steadily for about a 6 weeks now. I set it up as my external js editor in Acrobat preferences and have been very happy with it. It seems pretty sophisticated yet not difficult to learn, so I wouldn't want someone to overlook it as a good alternative. The Toolkit Guide says that ESTK "provides an interactive development and testing environment in all JavaScript-enabled Adobe applications." The way it highlights various elements of the script with colors is terrific, and I've found ESTK particularly helpful when I "edit all java scripts." It very nicely identifies each field to which each script belongs when editing all of them at once, and that saves a lot of time.

As always, I appreciate your great responsiveness and help very much.

Acrobat and LiveCycle Designer (JetForms) were using JS long before ESTK. They both have a simple and quick access to form preview and the editor for JS. There is no real need for a programing environment. And if one uses an environment and the product accesses the Document JS feature, it had better not modify any of the special tags in that file.

I am sure that if ESTK were of any benefit with Acrobat or LiveCycle Designer, there are power users here who would have been advocating its use.

You are free to make your choice.

Thanks for sticking with this. All good to know. When I first read your recommendation for TextPad my mind was thinking Notepad. I downloaded TextPad and will try it out. Much appreciated.

Back to vanishing formulas. Now I am have TextPad set as my external js editor in Acrobat preferences and am experiencing the same malfunction described in my first post on this topic, that is, when I click the edit button next to an existing custom calculation, it resets to "value is not calculated," the custom formula disappears and the edit window does not open unless I re-click the edit button and then re-enter the formula. This seems to have a mind of its own and does this periodically, but when it occurs, it happens repeatedly unless I close out the file and Acrobat and re-open. Common occurrence? Or am I the only reported case?