4 Replies Latest reply: Feb 2, 2014 2:09 PM by BSisson RSS

    How do I Section a form??

    BSisson Community Member

      My form is broken into logical sections.  I would like to break the PDF into the same sections, but currently the only breaks are PAGE breaks

      Page1

      -field1

      -field2

      -field3

      -field4

      ..

      Page2

      field

      field

      field

       

      I would LIKE to break it into logic sections that follow my form

       

      Page1

      -field1

      -field2

      -field3

      Subsection 1

      -field4

      Subsection 2

      ..

      Page2

      Subsectiom 3

      field

      field

      field

       

      Subsection 4

       

      The idea would be that if I needed to dissable an entire section, it would be easy as I could just act upon the section atributes rather than on each individual field -in- the subsection.

       

      Is there an easy way to do this in ACROBAT PRO XI?

       

      thanks




        • 1. Re: How do I Section a form??
          George_Johnson CommunityMVP

          You say you want to disable sections, but what exactly does that mean? Do you want to make the fields read-only, hide the fileds, make the fields and the underlying page contents disappear, or something else?

          • 2. Re: How do I Section a form??
            BSisson Community Member

            My form has sections already, grounds, heating, cooling, plumbing, etc....

             

            Occasionally, a section "Doesnt Apply" and I want to grey out, hide, dissable or otherwise skip the entire section.

             

            Since I must account for the worst case platform (reader) I can't hide entire sections, or use some of the other neat features.

             

            I could put a "Grey filled box" over the extire section if the "N/A" box was checked and make sure that I cleared all the checkboxes in that section as well.  Seems ineligant, but sometimes the simplist is the best.

             

            Any other ideas on how to "Skip" and entire section of a form?

             

            PS...glad to send you a copy of my "proof_of_concept" form...just PM me an email I can send a PDF to.

            • 3. Re: How do I Section a form??
              George_Johnson CommunityMVP

              OK. This can be done fairly easily if yuo use a hierarchical naming system for you form fields. For example, prefix all of your fields in section 1 with "S1.", tso they have names like: "S1.cust_name", "S1.address", "S1.city", etc. You can then hide all of the fields in a group with a single line of JavaScript:

               

              // Hide all of the secition 1 fields

              getField("S1").display = display.hidden;

               

               

              If you include an opaque button to cover all of the section (e.g., set the background to white and make it read-only), you can hide the underlying page contents by doing:

               

              // Show the section 1 button

              getField("S1_cover").display = display.visible;

               

              In this case don't include the "S1." prefix.

               

              Do the same type of thing for the other sections. You can then set up a general function in a document-level JavaScript to show/hide any section, something like:

               

              function hideFormSection(section, hide) {

               

                  // Determine whether to show or hide the fields

                  var disp = hide ? display.hidden : display.visible;

               

                  // Dtermine whether to show of hide the cover button

                  var disp_cover = hide ? display.visible : display.hidden;

               

                  // Show/Hide the fields

                  getField(section).display = disp;

               

                  // Show/Hide the cover button

                  // Each section cover button is named: prefix + "_cover". Example: "S1_cover"

                  getField(section + "_cover").display = disp_cover;

               

              }

               

               

              And you could call it like this:

               

              // Hide section 1

              hideFormSection("S1", true);

               

              // Show section 3

              hideFormSection("S3", false);

              • 4. Re: How do I Section a form??
                BSisson Community Member

                Wow that looks easy.

                 

                I was already going to name my fields Checkbox.section.field_number.

                 

                This is how I can build a summary very easily later, by looping through Section and Field Number and extracting the "Export Data" into a text field on the summary page.

                 

                I already have some button-up scripts that make a fied required if they say they have a component.... I can just do something similar for the entire section and add a Text-box over it with a grey fill.  More stuff for my Proof-of-concept form.

                 

                thanks.