User manual

Completing Adobe PDF forms
If a PDF form contains interactive form fields, you can fill in the form with the Basic
toolbar's Hand tool. When you place the Hand tool pointer over an interactive form field,
the pointer icon changes from the Hand icon
to the Pointing Hand icon , the
Pointing Hand Plus icon
, the Arrow icon , or the I-beam icon . If the form fields
aren't interactive, the Hand icon
doesn't change; instead, you can print a noninteractive
PDF form and fill it out by hand.
Some text fields are dynamic, which means they automatically resize to
accommodate the amount of data you enter, and can span across pages. (See About form
fields that span multiple pages and About typing in forms with barcodes.)
To fill out an interactive PDF form:
1. Select the Hand tool .
2. If you want to make form fields easier to identify in the PDF file, do any of the following
in the Document Message Bar:
● To display a light blue color in the background of all form fields, select Highlight Fields.
● To display a red outline around all form fields that you're required to fill, select Highlight
Required Fields. (This option appears only if the PDF form contains required fields.)
3. Position the pointer inside a form field, and click. The I-beam pointer allows you to type
text; the Arrow icon
lets you select an item in a list box; the Pointing Finger icon or
the Pointing Hand Plus icon
lets you select a button, a check box, a radio button, or an
item from a list.
4. After entering text or making a selection, do any of the following:
● Press Tab or Shift+Tab to accept the form field change and go to the next or previous field.
● Press Enter (Windows) or Return (Mac OS) to accept the text form field change and
deselect the current field. If the current field is a check box, pressing Enter or Return turns
the check box on or off. In a multiline text form field, pressing Enter or Return creates a
paragraph return in the same form field. You can use Enter on the keypad to accept the
change.
● Press the Up or Left arrow key to select the previous radio button in a group of radio
buttons, or press the Down or Right arrow key to select the next radio button.
● Press Esc to reject the form field change and deselect the current form field. If you are in
Full Screen mode, pressing Esc a second time causes you to exit Full Screen mode.
5. Once you have filled in the appropriate form fields, do one of the following:
● Click the submit form button, if one exists. Clicking this button sends the form data to a
database across the web or over your company intranet.
● Choose File > Save As, and rename the file to save the form with the data you entered.
● Export the form data. (See Exporting form data.)
● Print the form. (See Printing Adobe PDF documents.)
For information about how to fill in a digital signature form field, see Signing Adobe PDF
documents.
To clear a form in a browser:
Do one of the following:
● Select the reset form button, if one exists. You cannot undo this action.
● Quit the browser, and start again.
Clicking the web browser's Reload or Refresh button or the Go Back button, or following
a link in a browser window, may not clear a form.
To clear unsaved form entries in Acrobat:
Choose File > Revert.
Related Subtopics:
Completing fields automatically
About form fields that span multiple pages
About typing in forms with barcodes
Spell-checking text in forms