Form elements

The following elements can be present in PDF forms:

Check Box

Presents one or more choices that can be selected or de-selected freely.

Radio Buttons

Presents a group of choices from which a respondent can select only one item and one must always be selected. When adding radio buttons, all buttons in a group must be given the same control name. Right-click for Radio Button Properties to define control and group properties.

Text Field

Lets a respondent fill in text such as name, address, date, time, numbers, currency, zip codes. A form that is received may have a preset format, and all responses must conform to the rules for that format. When creating a form, you can set the formats and properties: see Creating and Editing Form Fields. A special type of text field is the Comb box, where there are marked spaces for each individual character. Set comb parameters under Text Field Properties.

Digital Signature

Lets you add a digital signature to the PDF form to certify it has not been changed since the signature was applied. Whenever you add a signature to a document it is placed into this type of form field. When you open such a document you are warned that it contains a signature.

Barcode

Barcode Tool: Place a barcode. On the Options page of the Barcode properties dialog box, select symbology (PDF417, QR Code, or Data Matrix).

Button

This has an action linked to it, such as "Reset a form" or "Submit a form".

List Box

This lets the respondent select from a list of given text choices.

Combo Box

This lets the respondent select from a list of given text choices or type in any response.

This table shows you which form controls are available for different procedures.

Icon	Control	Import an active PDF form	Manual form design
	Check Box	YES	YES
	Radio Button	YES	YES
	Text Field	YES	YES
	Signature Field	YES	YES
	Button	YES	YES
	List Box	YES	YES
	Combo Box	YES	YES
–	Comb Box (a sub-category of Text Field)	YES	YES

See Create and edit form fields on how to manually place form controls onto a page, define their properties, resize, move and align controls and how to set their tabbing order.

To see how form controls are affected when a document is flattened, see Flattening Documents. You can use Document Inspection to remove form fields and actions.

For more information, see Form options, and Form Controls panel.