Field Alignment is Ignored on fields with same name

[TheWiz]

When we have a form with two fields that have the same name, the alignment property of the second field is ignored and instead uses the alignment of the first field.

Example: two fields, both named "Customer Name". The first field is centered, the second field is left-justified. When populated, both fields will be centered.

If the fields are named differently, the issue goes away.

So far, this only seems to happen with the alignment property. Other attributes such as font and size do not exhibit this behavior.

This is in PDF-XChange Editor version 7.0.326.

Any suggestions on how to resolve this without having to name the fields uniquely?

Thanks

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi, TheWiz

Form fields are unique in PDF as the data that is shown in the field is not actually stored inside the object in the page, this is why the same content is always shown for all fields with the same name.

With that said, the "alignment" value of the field should be respected in any situation. Seeing as you are running an older build, that is the most likely cause. I do not see the issue in the latest, Version 8 build 341.0. Could I ask you to please update the software and try this again?

Kind regards,

[TheWiz]

I updated to 8.0.331.0 which is the most recent version available to my subscription. The issue still exists. If I try to change the alignment of a field that shares the same field name as another one, it will not let me change the value. If I change the name of the field, I can do it. Looking at the three updates since then, the most recent which seems to be over 9 months ago, there is no indication that this has been fixed.

I have attached an image of what is happening to help.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi, TheWiz

There have been 10 total updates since build 331 was released, the most recent of which (341) was made available on August 12th 2020, just over a month ago. As the issue is resolved in this version, the only suggestion I can offer is to update the software further. We do not offer updates for previous versions.

To update beyond your maintenance period (which will cause the application to run in trial mode until a renewal is purchased) you can download the software from the product page directly: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/products

Kind regards,

[lkrose24]

Hi TheWiz and TrackerSupp-Daniel,

Did you ever resolve this issue? I have the latest version installed (version 9.2, build 359.0), and I am having the same issues. This issue also seems to happen with any field in which I change the alignment to center or right. It cannot be changed back to left alignment. If I try to choose left alignment, it will change to centered alignment. However, it does seem that the alignment will print as left alignment if I had tried to change it, but it continues to appear as center alignment on the PDF.

Please let me know if you have found any solutions to this!

[TheWiz]

When editing form properties, I've found that you have to use the mouse to move out of the field to make the property stick. Hitting Enter or CTRL-S to save reverts the property to its previous value. This is in 8.0. Was considering upgrading today but I'll have to wait and see if this is still an issue as well as the need to rename similarly named fields to have different alignments. In the meantime, I have to add an extra character that gets ignored by our processing software but that tricks the PDF editor into thinking that they are different fields.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, TheWiz

So far as I am aware, the issue has been resolved since build 341.0, until today, no one provided any word saying otherwise. In the latest version, I still cannot reproduce this issue in any capacity.

Could I ask one of you, who are able to reproduce the issue, to please provide a video showing the issue, and detailed description of the exact steps, including clicks and all keypresses for me, perhaps I will be able to reproduce this and show our dev team. Without a way to reproduce the issue, there is nothing that I am able to offer.

Kind regards,

[lkrose24]

Hi Daniel,

I have a video I can share with you. What is the best way to post or send it your way?

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi TheWiz,

you may put it on our file service as described here: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowle ... le-service

Just be sure to tell us the file name once the upload is complete so we can associate it with your case.

regards

[lkrose24]

Okay, it has been uploaded. It is called lkrose24 - form field alignment issue. Another one was uploaded with it by accident that may be deleted

In the video, the only form field that does not have this alignment issue is the only one that does not share a name with other form fields in the document.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, lkrose24

Thank you for the video, the fact that this is not happening to all fields tells me it is something specific to those fields that causes the problem. As a test, if you make a new document, and manually recreate these same form fields, does the same issue occur? I expect that the problem was present in whatever was used when you created this file (if it was an old build of ours, that issue appears to be resolved so far as I can tell), and that may be preventing us from correctly changing the data in these fields.

If at all possible, could I also ask you to please send a copy of this form for us to test with?

Kind regards,

[lkrose24]

Hi Daniel,

I just emailed the PDF and some comments to support titled "lkrose24 - form field alignment issues". Let me know if you need anything else.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, lkrose24

I've received the file, and I do see the issue here, I am not certain what exactly is the underlying cause, but something within the data for the problematic fields is certainly causing the issue, if you delete both instances of the fields, and create new versions of them using the latest release, the issue does not resurface, at least in my tests so far. This can be used as a workaround that does not involve needing to create an entire new document, at the very least.

I am forwarding this file to our Dev team, for further investigation, perhaps if we are lucky, they can find the root cause, and develop an inbuilt workaround for this situation at some time in future, but I cannot promise that it is possible to fix at this time.

Kind regards,

[lkrose24]

Thank you for looking into this. That is great to know that there is a solution that keeps me from starting from scratch, so I will proceed with deleting and replacing fields as needed. The entire file is many pages long with several fields of the same name, so I am guessing that each of these fields will need to be deleted at the same time before creating new ones. Is that correct?

If so, is there any shortcut to this besides going through each page or fields pane and visually scanning for the desired field?

Thanks again!

[lev]

Fields pane (Ctrl+I) should help.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello, lev

I think lkrose24 was asking for a method to do this without using either the main document window, or the fields pane.

lkrose24 , Unfortunately, without using either, there simply is no way to accomplish this. My recommendation would be, as Lev said using the Fields pane (Ctrl+I) which if sorted in alphabetical order, will help you to find any duplicates of existing fields.

image.png (10.59 KiB) Viewed 760 times

image1.png (6.69 KiB) Viewed 760 times

Using this, you can find duplicates, and double click on each of the entries to jump directly to that fields location in the document. Hopefully that should help you to find all instances of the problematic fields and recreate them a bit more easily.

Kind regards,