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ted padova
ted@west.net
17
working with fields
Adding an Address Block
Adobe LiveCycle Designer has a nifty group of fields in the Library
panel called an Address Block. See Tip #87 for more on using the
Address Block in Adobe LiveCycle Designer.
Unfortunately, Acrobat doesn’t have an easy way to add these com-
monly used fields. Here’s a little workaround to help out.
Create a blank new page by choosing File | Create PDF | From
Blank Page.
Add Fields on the blank new page for last name, first name,
address 1, address 2, city, state, zip, email, and phone con-
tacts (i.e., land, mobile, and fax).
Name the fields xxx.last.name, xxx.first.name, xxx.address1,
xxx.address2, xxx.city, etc. The important thing is to use
parent/child names and use something like xxx for the root
name. (See Tip #28 for instructions on changing field names).
Save the file to a location where you want to keep templates
and commonly used files.
While the file is still open in Acrobat, choose File | Organizer |
Add to a Collection. (Note you must first save your document
before the menu command will be active).
Click a Collection in the Add to Collection dialog box or click
the New Collection button to create a new collection and
save your file to that collection.
Each time you want to add an address block, open the file
from the Organizer and copy fields from the template docu-
ment and paste the address block in your new form design.
28
Renaming Fields
Take a look at Tip #27 and you’ll find an
example of one good reason why we would
want to change field names. Changing field
names that use a hierarchical structure is
quite easy in Acrobat. Let’s take Tip #27 as
an example and do the following:
Choose View | Navigation Panels | Fields.
Using Tip #27 as an example, you’ll find the root name ap-
pearing as xxx. Nested below the root name are the fields
with child names.
Open a context menu on the root name (in this example xxx).
Choose Rename field.
Type a new parent name (such as employee) and press enter.
All fields will take on the parent name and you’ll see field
names like employee.last.name, employee.first.name, etc.
You can quickly access navi-
gation panels by opening a
context menu on a Navigation
Panel button and choose the
panel you want to display.
ted’s ti
p
When you create a blank new page
you get an annoying text block on the
new page. To eliminate the text block
and use the blank page for a template,
choose File | Save and save the file.
When you reopen the file, the text block
is gone.
ted’s ti
p
