Modify character spacing in a PDF form field

Question

This question was originally posted by esilver but he seemed to answer his own question, which then didn't make any sense. In his post he mentioned 'combing' of which I have found no reference to.

Here is what his question is and my slight amendment is at the bottom:

esilver's question:

"I'm trying to build a web app to programmatically fill out a PDF form. I am going to configure my form first in Adobe Acrobat, then write a Java app with iText to fill out all the form fields via user input from the web. The base form I need to fill out comes from the US government. They created form fields with extremely large kerning (character spacing) values I need to change. However, there appears to be no way to modify this value in the Acrobat UI.

Does anyone know how to manipulate character spacing on form fields in Acrobat 8.0 for Windows? I could try to use iText to programmatically manipulate the kerning of the original document, but this would be much more tedious.

Thanks!"

His answer:

"I believe I figured this out: kerning is called "combing" in acrobat, and each of the form fields have been "combed". The strange thing is this option isn't checked when I view the properties of the form field, but "combing" is the behaviour I was attempting to replicate."

My amendement:

I am using Acrobat Pro 9 to generate this form. Now my question is: Does anyone know how to manipulate character spacing on form fields in Acrobat Pro 9 for Windows?

Answer 1

It sounds like you're referring to comb fields, not kerning. Kerning is adjusting the spacing between characters so that letters like AV can be pushed closer together and still look good.

A comb field is a field where each letter has a specific visible box that it fits into. I believe it's named a comb field because the spacing resembles the teeth of a comb. Comb fields are common on government forms and are used to encourage you to print your answer.

Comb fields don't make a lot of sense for an electronic form, but sometimes the electronc form has to exactly match the print form for legal reasons.

Try loading the form in LiveCycle Designer, which comes with Acrobat. If it's an XFA form (vs an AcroForms form), then you'll be able to edit the kerning in Designer.