form fields rotating 180 on copy/paste

[ketter]

PDF-XChange Editor Plus Version 6.0 Build 322.5.
I have a form that I created by scanning a document and adding the form fields to it. Each year when I get a new form, I copy/paste the fields from the prior version into the new one and modify them as needed. For some reason this year when i copied into the new form, the fields were all rotated 180 degrees. I can't find any way to change the rotation. I looked on the version history to see if maybe a newer version had a fix for this, but could not find anything relevant. Any suggestions?
Thanks!
Ken

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hello Ken,

Can you share a copy of the old and the new form? If they contain sensitive information - please send them to support@pdf-xchange.com with a link back to this post, and we will take a look.

Regards,
Stefan

[ketter]

I just emailed the forums as directed. Thanks!

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Thanks for the files Ken,

I see that both the last year and new year files are actually rotated from their original scanned direction.
So you seem to have e.g. one of them scanned with the text facing left, and then turned it 90 degrees clockwise to look "upright", and the other file was originally scanned e.g. with the text facing right, and was rotated 90° counterclockwise to look good.
So now the coordinate systems inside the files are opposite to one another, and when you copy the form fields - they paste upside down.
When I pasted them in a newly created file - they pasted sideways

What I can offer you is to copy all the fields as a block, and while they are still selected apply a transformation on them, and rotate them 180 degrees and position them over the right place in the new file.

Regards,
Stefan

[ketter]

Stefan,
Ok, that must be because I used a different scanner this year. I did not rotate them myself. So how do I do the transform? I couldn't find a "rotate" handle on the selected objects and I could not find a rotate command in the menu.
Ken

[ketter]

And a nice enhancement then would be the ability to over-ride the documentation orientation when I do a copy/paste.
Ken

[Willy Van Nuffel]

Form fields do not have a "Rotation" property (because you can not rotate the field itself), but a "Orientation" property (for the text "in" the field).

At my opinion, the simplest thing you can do is:
1) first activate the Properties pane
(via Classic UI : View > Other Panes > Properties Pane
(via Ribbon UI : View ribbon > Panes > Properties Pane

2) select the Form fields by drawing a rectangle around them with the "Select Fields" tool
(via Classic UI : click in the "Edit Form" button in the "Form" toolbar, and then click "Select Fields" (= first icon in the Properties toolbar
(via Ribbon UI : click the "Form" tab and then "Select Fields"

3) once that the form fields are selected, change the "Orientation" property to 0°(or a value that differs for 180° from the original)

Best regards.

[ketter]

Willy,
That does not work. If I copy/paste all form fields as I normally would they show up rotated 180 degrees (text is upside down). If I follow your suggestion, the fields are still rotated 180 degrees, but now the text is right-side up. Still does nothing for me because all the form fields are in the wrong location relative to each other. I would still need to mirror the pasted objects twice (once horizontally and once vertically) to get the results I need. But there is no command to do that.

Stefan,
I do see a menu command called Object > Transform Selection, but it is greyed out when my form fields are selected.

Ken

[Willy Van Nuffel]

When I re-read the topic, why can't you just turn the sheet of paper with 180° before you scan it with your new scanner ?

After that, when handling the resulting PDF, the situation should be just like with your old scanner, no ?

Best regards.

[ketter]

Willy,
That might work. Keep in mind that in both cases, I scanned the document in portrait mode. I did not do any rotation editing myself. Both scanners are from the same manufacturer (they are Lanier MFPs). But if I understand correctly from Stefan, one rotated the coordinate system clockwise and the other did it counter-clockwise. My point is I shouldn't have to deal with any of this. If I scan two documents in portrait mode on different scanners and I add form fields to one I should be able to copy paste them to the other with the same orientation....regardless of the "coordinate system" inside the PDF. So in my opinion this is either a bug or a bad design decision. I am too buried right now to try to figure out work-arounds. The form needed creating, so I did it from scratch this time. In the meantime, I hope that Tracker Software will take a look at this and fix it.
Ken

[Willy Van Nuffel]

If you scanned to PDF from within PDF-XChange Editor V7, then 'maybe' the Editor can be the origin of the problem, but it can also be the scanner driver and/or the settings for it. I can not check this for you. So, I hope Tracker Software Support can help you out of trouble.

Best regards.

[ketter]

I did not use PDF XChange Editor to do the scanning. We do not have locally attached scanners. Scanning is done with MFPs (scanner/printer/copier units that handle up to 11"x17") or our large format scanner (for documents up to 36" wide). I will just wait and see what Tracker does with this..Thanks for the suggestions.
Ken

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi ketter,
I cant help but notice you are using an older update. Are you able to update to V7.0.323.2 and let me know if the problem is persisting for you?

[ketter]

Daniel,
We have purchased licenses with maintenance so I can update. I might try that soon. But Stefan had copies of my files and I assume he saw the same results, so I'm not sure that updating would help. But I will try when I get time.

Ken

[Tracker Supp-Stefan]

Hi Ken,

I did reproduce the issue with 323.2 indeed.

I managed to get the form and image to align - but unfortunately this involved rotating the image on the page - so the quality degraded.

Looking as the only difference in the image is the year at the top right - you can e.g. change just that in the file that has the form fields - and then update the information in the fields if necessary.

We will be working on sorting out copying of form fields when files have been internally rotated.

Regards,
Stefan