Dynamically auto-center text fields?

Thanks George,

Just focusing on the first question... is that really the only way to accomplish this goal (i.e. using a javascript)?

But either solution is clearly not something I can tackle, at this time. I have never worked with javascript within Acrobat and this is a side-project (volunteer).

Hi George,

George Johnson wrote:

 

the user can change the font, style, and color of the Name text and the Title text.

That is exactly what I want to avoid.

I have never worked much beyond creating basic forms in Acrobat and I am quite underwhelmed with it's inability to accomplish such a simple task, without a whole lot of extra work. Still, I admit that I think I might be missing some key facts/knowledge.

I experimented with creating a single field and assigning a centered attribute to it. In the text field properties > Options tab > Centered and Rich Text Formatting > Calculate tab > Custom Calculation Script:

var ObjectName = "line 1";

var JoinArrayStyle = new Array();

JoinArrayStyle[0] = new Object();

JoinArrayStyle[0].text = " John Smith ";

JoinArrayStyle[0].fontstyle = bold;

JoinArrayStyle[0].textSize = 10;

JoinArrayStyle[0].textColor = color.black;

JoinArrayStyle[1] = new Object();

JoinArrayStyle[1].text = " | ";

JoinArrayStyle[1].fontWeight = 900;

JoinArrayStyle[1].textSize = 10;

JoinArrayStyle[1].textColor = color.black;

JoinArrayStyle[2] = new Object();

JoinArrayStyle[2].text = "Senior Software Engineer";

JoinArrayStyle[2].fontstyle = italic;

JoinArrayStyle[2].textSize = 9;

JoinArrayStyle[2].textColor = color.red;

this.getField(ObjectName).richValue = JoinArrayStyle;

When I first tested this, it appeared to sort of work but now it is doing nothing. I am not even certain that "fontstyle" is valid...

Even if I can get the above working, it isn't ideal because it would be too easy to erase the rich text formatting. It made more sense to have two independent text fields, grouped together and centered together. 

George Johnson wrote:

 

How about using a single test field that's centered and prompting the user (app.response or custom dialog) for the values that would normally go in the Name and Title field, and include the pipe character in the text field between the two values? You'd have to use a field formatted for rich text if you want to use different font styles and colors for the two values and set the field value using two spans. All of this would involve JavaScript.

Rereading your original suggestion. If the user is prompted (i.e. the user doesn't directly interact with that single field), this would be an acceptable solution. Can you link me to any examples of this. I looked and was unsuccessful finding any suitable solutions that I could adapt to my project.

Thank you.

Hello George,

I will really appreciate any assistance you can offer.

In the meantime, and a little bit for proof of concept... I attempted a low-tech/no-code approach... but I think I discovered a bug in Adobe Acrobat's handling of OTF postscript fonts! (grrr... always something to foil my attempts). Adobe Acrobat is not correctly handling the font used in the rich text enabled form field. For instance, it seems impossible to get a normal non-bold, non-italic font.

I posted another message about this problem, here:

Rich text field will not show proper font attributes! (Bug? - RTF OTF font handling)

BTW, when I was playing with javascripts, this problem didn't seem to manifest itself. So it appears to only be a problem with direct inserting of rich text in a form field.

Thanks again for your valued assistance.