| Before you start filling out Adobe PDF forms, look over the types of fields on the forms and identify the common items you typically see on forms. PDF authors can choose from seven field types. Text fields. Text fields are placeholders for both text and numbers. Text fields can be assigned special formats such as date fields, telephone numbers, social security numbers, and more. When you type text in fields assigned with special formats, you need to enter data that conforms to the format type. For example, typing your name in a field is not acceptable if the field is formatted as a date field. When entering data in text fields and all other field types, use the Hand tool. Check box fields. Check boxes are designed for selecting one or more items in a group. You can check a check box by clicking it with the Hand tool, and remove the checkmark by clicking a checked box. Figure 19.5 shows a series of check boxes designed for a user to choose the type of credit card to use for payment. Figure 19.5. Click a check box to place a checkmark inside the box. Clicking a marked box removes the checkmark. 
Combo box. Combo boxes are like pull-down menus (Figure 19.6). Click a down arrow to open the menu, and select an item from the list. You can make only a single selection from combo box choices. Figure 19.6. Click the down arrow to open the menu and select an item from the list. 
List box. List boxes are similar to combo boxes but the box contains scroll bars and has no pull-down menu. The primary distinction between this field type and combo boxes is that list boxes can be used to make multiple choicesthat option is up to the PDF author. Figure 19.7 shows a list box where multiple selections are permitted. Figure 19.7. List boxes are scrollable boxes that can be designed for making multiple selections. 
TIP To select multiple items in a list box, press the Ctrl/Command key and click each item you want to select. If you can't select more than a single item in a list box, then the PDF author designed the field to accept only a single response.
Radio buttons. Radio buttons can look much like check boxes, and you may not see the difference when using them on a form. A radio button is typically (though not always) shaped like a circle (Figure 19.8), which differs from choices available for check boxes. The main distinction between radio buttons and check boxes is that once you click a radio button, you can't remove the check mark/bullet by clicking on it again. Often Radio buttons are used for either/or conditions or a single choice from within a group. For example, you may be asked to select a gender response (either/or) or a credit card type from among choices for Visa, M/C, AMEX, and so on. Only one choice in either example is an acceptable response. Figure 19.8. A radio button's defaul appearance is a circle. When a radio button is selected, you can't deselect the button by clicking it again. 
Why do all check boxes and radio buttons remain on when I check them for items intended for a single response? This is a common problem PDF authors make. If you work on a form where a question is meant to elicit a single choice, such as credit card type, and clicking in a box doesn't turn off the other choices, then the PDF author made a mistake in assigning attributes to the fields. The only way to disable the radio buttons or check boxes is to close the form and reopen it, or to click a reset button if one exists to reset the form by clearing the data. Be careful to read the questions and click the button for the choice you want to make. Avoid clicking on a second button or box for the same question. |
Buttons. Buttons are intended to invoke actions. Quite often, you find buttons designed to reset a form and to submit a form. Reset Form (Figure 19.9) is often used to clear all the data on a form. Be careful when clicking this button, as it often clears all the data on the form. The Submit button action often sends the data to a URL or email address. PDF authors use Submit buttons to collect data electronically. Although you can't save form data from Adobe Reader without special usage rights, you can submit data to PDF authors when the button actions are so designed. Figure 19.9. Buttons are designed to invoke actions such as resetting a form, submitting a form, or a host of other different action types. 
Signature. Signature fields are designed for using a Digital ID and electronically signing a form (Figure 19.10). Unless a form has special usage rights created with the Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions, you can't use these fields. When you receive documents that have been signed, you can click the signed field to validate the signature. For more information about using digital signatures, see Chapter 17 "Using Digital Signatures and Security." Figure 19.10. Signature fields can be verified (or validated), but you can only apply a new signature if your PDF file has usage rights assigned via Adobe LiveCycle Reader Extensions. 
Barcode form fields. Adobe LiveCycle Designer is a separate program that ships with Acrobat 7 Professional. Adobe Designer is used to author Adobe XML-based PDF forms and is available only on Windows. When using Adobe Designer, a PDF author can create barcode fields. Barcodes can be static or interactive. Static barcodes appear similar to barcodes you see on product labels in stores. Interactive barcode fields automatically encode the data that's entered in the respective barcode field(s).
To help clarify the difference between static and interactive barcode fields, look at the PDF form shown in Figure 19.11. There are two barcodes on the form. The first barcode appearing on the top-right side of the form is a static barcode. The barcode appearing on the lower-left side of the form is an interactive barcode. The static barcode has a pre-assigned value. This is a generic barcode used to identify the 2004 Conference Registration Form. No matter what an attendee types on the form, the barcode data are fixed and do not change the value assigned to the barcode. The interactive barcode on the lower-left side of the form reforms as data are typed on the form. The barcode is dynamic and changes to record new data typed on the form. Figure 19.11. A PDF form contains a static barcode on the top-right side of the form and an interactive barcode on the lower-left side of the form. 
Other common items on PDF forms include: Tool tips. When you move the cursor to a field and pause, a pop-up tool tip displays a message such as the one shown in Figure 19.10. Not all fields contain tool tips. If the PDF author did not include them in the design of the form, you may not see a tool tip when the cursor is placed over a field. If the form was created with Adobe LiveCycle Designer, however, the name of the field will show up in the tool tip by default. Icons. Button fields can be designed with button images where a PDF author uses an image to indicate what a button may be used for. Most common are navigational buttons with left and right arrows or some other icon indicating that you click the button to navigate pages. For an example of a document containing navigation buttons, open the hawaiiNewslettser.pdf file. The palm tree icons at the bottom of the pages are navigational buttons: Click a button on the lower-right side of a page to advance forward through pages, and click the button on the lower-left side of a page to move to previous pages.  | You can download the hawaiiNewsletter.pdf file from www.peachpit.com/adobereader7. |
Inoperable buttons. You may find buttons on forms that do nothing when you click on them. Adobe Acrobat Standard and Adobe Acrobat Professional have many features that the Adobe Reader software isn't capable of using. For instance, it can't introduce data, generate new pages from templates, swap data between forms, add new fields, and many more actions. It's good practice for PDF authors to create custom dialogs to explain the limitations for Adobe Reader users, but not all PDF authors add these warning messages. If a button does nothing, it's likely that the action can't be performed in Adobe Reader. TIP You can view JavaScript action errors in Adobe Reader to find out if a button invokes an action not permitted in Reader. Open the Preferences dialog box (Ctrl/Command + K) and click JavaScript. Check the Show console on errors and messages box. When you click a button that is assigned a JavaScript that cannot be invoked in Adobe Reader, a pop-up console window reports an error.
Locked fields. Some form fields may be locked if the attributes are set to read-only. If you try to edit some text in a text box but can't, the field is likely a read-only field.
You can use the following keyboard shortcuts to navigate and edit fields: Tab. Press the Tab key to move from one field to another. If the PDF author set the proper tab order, the cursor jumps to the next logical field when you press the Tab key. If the cursor jumps around the page when you press Tab, use the Hand tool and click on fields you want to edit. Shift+Tab. Moves the cursor to the previous field. Esc/Return/Enter. Ends text entry. Up/down arrow keys. For combo boxes and list boxes, press the up and down arrow keys to move up and down the lists. Press Tab after making a selection. Up arrow key in text fields. Moves to the beginning of the text line. Down arrow key in text fields. Moves to the end of the line of text. Select All. With the cursor inside a Text field, press Ctrl/Command+A to select all existing text. Press any key, and the selected text is deleted and replaced by the character you type. Double-click. Double-click a word in a text field to select it. Triple-click. Triple-click inside a text box and all text is selected. This keyboard shortcut is the same as using Select All.
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