PDF Forms Using Acrobat® and LiveCycle® Designer Bible

Chapter 8. Working with Tables

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating tables

• Opening tables in other programs

• Exporting data

Tables are part of many PDF forms. Tables are commonly set up with columns and rows having a header at the top that describes the content for each column and two or more rows of data following the header.

You find tables in a variety of forms. You might have a job application form where tables are used for work and education history. You see many tables in point of sale purchase forms where you find columns of descriptions, quantity, price, and totals across each row. In other forms, you see tables that make data entry and exporting data intuitive and easy for form fillers.

Tables can be as small as a few rows of data following a header or many pages of data all within a tabular format. In Acrobat, you need to design a table for the maximum anticipated rows of data that a form recipient is likely to use on your form. In LiveCycle Designer, you can create dynamic forms that spawn new rows based on user input or data flowing into a form.

In this chapter, we talk exclusively about creating and editing tables in Acrobat. If you want to know more about dynamic tables created in LiveCycle Designer, see Chapter 28.

Creating Tables in PDF Forms

When designing tables, you should use a table feature in an authoring application. Programs like Microsoft Word and Adobe InDesign both have table features that support formatting tables, such as adding columns and rows, adding headers, and alternating ...