couple of simple things i can't figure...

hey all,

I am creating a fillable form for a friend who has a photography business.

It on his letterhead, and i created using the create form/use current document method.

it has name/address/phone/date fields at the top, and then on the lower half it has amount, description, price, total fields, and then a 'total' invoice box in bottom right hand corner...

my first problem is, i cant figure out how to?(if this is even possible) to have the form, when he is filling it out, be fields that have the thin black line around them, simply so he can see WHERE the fields are to fill in...but i DON'T want the lines to be visible when the form is printed, so it looks like it was printed on a typewriter or in Word...hope that makes sense...

my next problem is, whenever i enter an amount into any of the fields (except the description one, but i havent tried it), the amount will 'auto fill' the rest of the fields in that column, though i am pretty sure i didnt choose to do so when creating the form...why is this happening?

thanks in?advance for any help!!

couple of simple things i can't figure...

If they have ''show form fields'' selected in their Reader preferences, they will be able to see where the fields are. As for the other problem, you need to be sure that each field has a unique name. Data entered in to one field will replicate through all fields with the same name.

couple of simple things i can't figure...

ok, so for the unique names in the fields, you mean instead of having a columnn of say 10 fields, instead of having them ALL called 'amount' or 'quanity', they need to be called amount1, amount2, etc...

is what what you mean?

and as for the 'show form fields', is there recommended settings on MY end creating it that i have to use to have the boxes NOT show up/be visible when he prints the form?

thanks again for your fast reply...

maussimo010 wrote:

ok, so for the unique names in the fields, you mean instead of having a columnn of say 10 fields, instead of having them ALL called 'amount' or 'quanity', they need to be called amount1, amount2, etc...

is what what you mean?

In answer to your first question, remember than anyone who opens the form in Reader (or Acrobat Pro) will have the purple ''Highlight Fields'' option available to them in the upper right corner.

(You could use JavaScript to do something more complicated, but I'm guessing the Highlight Fields option is going to do the trick.)

ok, i have a new issue:

so, i took the advice of making ALL of the fields unique, meaning instead of having 8 'quantity' fields and adobe not being able to differentiate between them, ALL of my fields have a qty1, qty, description1, description2, etc, so that they are ALL unique...

I am trying in earnest to get my rows to do some math, and I have it set up like this:

qty field?description field price field amount field?

all of the above are in a row, with 8 rows,

i tried to go into the amount field, then properties, then to the 'calculate' tab

i am trying to get a monetary total for the amount field, then have the amount fields total to fill in my total box in bottom right hand corner

i selected 'value is the' radio button, selected product (x) of from the drop down box, and picked fields qty1 and price field 1, because lets say for example i have a value of 4 in the qty field, and the price is $5, shouldnt that put a $20 in the box automatically?

for some reason, a $1.00 appears in the amt1 field, and i have NO IDEA why...i dont even know how to get rid of it except to delete the field, copy/paste another one just like it, then rename that one to amt1 again, then resave it...

WHILE i have someone's attention reading this, if i get this squared away to where the amount fields do their math right, HOW do i get the total box to sum the amounts of the amount fields 1-8, AND what if there is no value for lets say 4 or 5 of the amount fields, will acrobat just see those as zeros and add them in and still give me the correct total?

sorry for the long post, i am just trying to be as accurate in my description of my problem as i can be...

thanks again for all the help!

maussimo010 wrote:

i selected 'value is the' radio button, selected product (x) of from the drop down box, and picked fields qty1 and price field 1, because lets say for example i have a value of 4 in the qty field, and the price is $5, shouldnt that put a $20 in the box automatically?

for some reason, a $1.00 appears in the amt1 field, and i have NO IDEA why...i dont even know how to get rid of it except to delete the field, copy/paste another one just like it, then rename that one to amt1 again, then resave it...

that was actually a typo on my part; my fields are labeled like this:

qty1,2,3, etc,?description1, price1, amt1, and goes on for 8 rows

like:

qty1?description1 price1?amt1

qty2 description2?price2?amt2

Can you upload the document somewhere so we can have a look at it? Maybe upload to Acrobat.com and then post a link to it here?

let me know if this works out ok...

files.me.com/skawalker/zwupzh

that should be the .pdf, and the only file available for download in that folder...im sure you will open it in acrobat, so dont be fooled by the way it looks in preview, cause it looks bare naked with nothing visible on it...no field boxes, nothing...

That's weird, after entering the calculations I did see the strange ''1'' once, but now everything is working as it should. Next time you open it to work on it select Forms%26gt;Clear Form before changing any of the fields, that might help.

Oh, and once you do enter the correct formulas, you'll see $0.00 in every amount field. This is an unfortunate consequence of using the built-in calculation options instead of JavaScript (which would allow you to suppress zeros).

Also, I'd suggest adding visible text like Name:, Address:, etc., before your fields.

One other thing, is this for your friend to fill in and send out? If he's emailing it out it might be a concern that the recipient could just alter the field values. (If it's just being printed out, this wouldn't be a problem.) There are ways around this, but all involve JavaScript.

what do you mean by this?

''Also, I'd suggest adding visible text like Name:, Address:, etc., before your fields''

what does this do?

as for the altering field values, i think it will be printed out most of the time as far as i know....but does 'locking' the form or digital signatures do anything to avoid the recipient making changes to it?

also, was the multiplication working for you? my main problem was the weird ''1'' showing up, but I also want to be able to get the 'qty' and 'price' fields to input what should go into the 'amt' fields so he doesnt have to do any math, or as little as possible...just for accuracy and time-savings sake...

when i went to the properties box while in the 'amt1' field, and chose to multiply the 'qty' and the 'price' fields, nothing showed up in the box that shows i selected those two fields...was there supposed to be something there??I used command/apple key and selected the two from the dropdown box of fields to choose from, but nothing ever actually went into that box...seems to me like there should have been the fields i chose in there...

maussimo010 wrote:

what do you mean by this?

''Also, I'd suggest adding visible text like Name:, Address:, etc., before your fields''

on te part about naming Mac is a unique system in that it allows spaces. Actually what it does is insert invisibly the code for a space in a way the Mac accepts.

However when it placed on a server as in a web page of ftp page those codes are stripped. So you have result to the old crutch that been around for decades to replace any spaces with underscores ''_'' .