multi-line PDF text field in Preview

Same problem with PDF forms containing multiline text fields. Text appears correctly spaced while editing field but lines compress when you move out of the field. Snow Leopard had a similar problem but you could force line feeds, this seems to still work in Lion but more difficult as the line ends at a different place when editing than when displaying.

Will keep looking for a solution.

This is UGLY but it works.

Do NOT use the the text field supplied in the document. Overlay an annotation text field over the original area and you will be able to control font size, color etc. Did not see a control for line spacing but it did come out at standard spacing. Be sure to draw a text box, NOT just click so that you get a cursor. The later will create a text box with unlimited length so you will have to manually put in line feeds, especially bad if you paste text.

For text already there try cutting it to the clipboard, overlay annotation text field and paste back in.

This gives you the added benifit of spell check which I really need.

A similar approach allows you to overcome Preview's inability to deal with check boxes, just overlay a text annnotation and put an X in it or use the font panel to get a check mark.

Open the annotation toolbar by clicking on the button that looks like a pencil on the regular toolbar then click on the arrow beside the text button which looks like a rectangle with an upper case A and a lower case a, select text from the drop down menu. Your cursor should change to a + sign. Now hold down the mouse button and drag a rectangle over the area you wish to fill with text. You will get a bounding box with an insertion point, start typing. You can then select the font and use the popup menu to spell check and things like that. Paragraph formatting is a bit limited and it is difficult to cover other text as Preview insists on leaving a shadow around any rectangle you place in the document to cover old text.

Hope that helps.

-j

Any new solutions to this? I have the same issue, but with a form that has about 30 fields... and I need to fill it out about 30 times with different information. I'm hoping I can find a way to do so with out creating new textboxes over and over for this many forms!

Thanks in advance for any help offered!

I had the same issue with lines overlapping. I saved the Preview version and could re-open it and the data was still there. When I opened the same PDF in Acrobat Pro, there was no data. However, I exported the data from the Forms menu (even though no data was showing). It exported to an .FDF file. I then imported this same FDF file back into the PDF and voila! --the data was imported and all the text boxes look and print correctly.

I haven't tried this with Acrobat Reader, but maybe someone else can try it and comment.

Same problem here. Extremely annoying... How can such a regression happen?

Hi JJordanthesailor,

what do you mean by drawing a text box? What kind of class do you use?

Thanks!!

I filed a bug report .. hopefully this will be solved with 10.7.3!

Nope. 1.7.3 is out and it's still not fixed.

I have this problem too, which is not great.

Apple, please fix as soon as possible.

Great news indeed! Thanks Apple!