Bulk Renaming Form Fields

  • Bulk Renaming Form Fields

    Posted by Rebecca Yu on February 13, 2023 at 12:47 pm

    Hello,

    I am complete novice to javascript so I’m really just trying to figure out if what I’m trying to do is even possible. We have users who would like to combine some completed forms into a combined pdf. When they do this, it generally looks okay in Revu, but doesn’t work when trying to open in Reader (and we need it to work for both for this client). The easy fix would be to flatten the forms prior to combining, but the client also wants to be able to edit those fields post combining. The reason the programs don’t behave well is that many of the fields on the forms being combined have the same name. So, I am trying to figure out if there is a way to bulk rename form fields with a random suffix so that we can keep these forms active once combined or something similar that would allow for that.

    I tried reaching out to the author of this script (http://try67.blogspot.com/2010/10/acrobat-convert-duplicated-fields-to.html), but he didn’t think it would work for what I wanted to do.

    Rebecca Yu replied 1 year, 10 months ago 2 Members · 2 Replies
  • 2 Replies
  • Liz Larsen

    Member
    February 13, 2023 at 1:32 pm
    Points: 4,855
    Rank: UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII UC2 Brainery Orange Belt IIII

    If you use the Bluebeam “staple” tool, yes, all the forms will keep their original names.

    However, if you start a new PDF and “insert pages” instead, all duplicate form fields will get renamed with a number added to the end.

    If this is sufficient for you, great!

    If not, I can probably put some JavaScript together that’ll work. Let me know if you’d like to go that route.

    • Rebecca Yu

      Member
      February 13, 2023 at 3:00 pm
      Points: 634
      Rank: UC2 Brainery White Belt I UC2 Brainery White Belt I

      That worked beautifully. Thanks!! Hard to believe it didn’t occur to me to try that first.

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