PDF Forms Using Acrobat® and LiveCycle® Designer Bible

Chapter 25. Working with Objects

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Changing object appearances

• Editing object properties

• Changing tab orders

In Chapter 24 we introduced you to field objects and we talked about some of the formatting options you have for changing attributes. We expand our discussion on objects in this chapter to include text objects and look a little deeper into setting object attributes and using formatting controls.

Designer provides an abundant number of palette tabs to set attributes for all the objects you add to a form. Controlling font attributes, using paragraph formatting, setting stroke weights, binding data to objects, choosing patterns and similar types of controls require you to become familiar with the attributes and the tools you use to make edits on objects.

Think of this chapter as an extension of Chapter 24 and carefully examine the issues related to object formatting. Once you have an understanding for how to properly design objects and control the options associated with them, you'll be ready to move on to chapters ahead where we create some dynamic forms and work with form data.

Formatting Field Objects Appearances

In Chapter 24 we talked about using the Libraries and dragging and dropping objects from a library palette to a form. You should be aware of the fact that when you drop an object on a form, you see a default view for an object in terms of the object's appearance.

The good folks at Adobe set up some default appearances for field objects using formatting attributes ...