I would suggest you use the list API methods to dynamically change the text value associated to the selected item when the selection changes (in the Change event).

I’m attempting to change the displayed/printed value in a drop down list to the value only, and not the entire text..

In my list, I have:

01:Daylight
02:Dawn
03:Dusk
04:Night

I would like the form to present the full-text and numbers to the user, but once selected, only display and print the number (value).

Any ideas on how to make this work?

Thanks!
Brad

It sounds like you want to do something similar to what I describe in my tutorial on testing HTTP submit buttons…

How to get the dynamic field values in jsp page using servlet response while clicking the button on the form?

Unfortunately, I don’t believe it’s possible to do what you ask. When you set the font size to zero, Acrobat/Reader manages the font size for you.

If you have a compliant form that can’t allow the field to grow, you might want to consider this solution which shows how to overflow the text onto a second field on another page in the form (e.g. an appendix page of some sort).

I have a similiar problem like EBS (24.):
*******
Hello, I have my field set to 0 so the text will auto resize if the user enters alot of characters BUT I would also like the autosize font to start at around font size “10? as default – until the autosizing comes into effect.

My form looks really weird as some fields have a really big font when only a few characters are entered and alot smaller font when alot of characters are entered. The text on the form is completely disproportionate to each other.
*******

I have a also field with text “autosize” and want to combine it with a max/min fontsize. The result should be that the textsize shrinks till a defined size, based on the fontsize, was reached.

Expanding to fit is not a solution, because there is now space to resize the form field himself.

So, is it possible to combine autosize with a max/min fontsize?

I’m afraid the zero font size may be something only supported by Acrobat/Reader which means when rendering the form to a static PDF on the server, you won’t get that behaviour. Also, depending on how and when the behaviour (of shrinking the text to fit within the field’s content area) takes place, it’s possible that Acrobat/Reader is required in order to achieve it and Acrobat/Reader doesn’t come into play on the server.

Since you cannot let fields expand to fit their values, I would suggest you lower the font size and set the field’s “Object palette > Field tab > Limit Length to Visible Area property” to make sure users can’t enter more text than can visibly fit within the field.

I converted an Acrobat form (that uses font size of auto on several fields) to a static XDP. Changed these fields to use a 0 font size and everything works fine in designer. Unfortunately the final version of the form is rendered server-side and it appears that LiveCycle ES rendering is unaware of this work-around. Any ideas? Also, this is a very busy standard financial form with lots of horizontal and vertical lines that all has to fit on one printed page, so horz and vert expansion is impossible.

Sounds like you would be better-off making the fields expand to fit their value.

While Designer doesn’t let you do it easily, you can actually put a Floating Field Reference inside rich text inside a text field which permits text entry at runtime (in Acrobat/Reader). When you type in the field, the value from the floating field is treated as a single character which flows with the text and can also be deleted (after which the reference is lost, at runtime, because it’s no longer part of the text field’s data).

We do this as part of the Correspondence Generation Building Block within the Correspondence Management Solution Accelerator.

Try the following steps:

1. Insert a new text field. Set its “Object palette > Field tab > Field Format property” to “Rich Text” and give the field a default value (anything).
2. Insert a new text object. While in edit mode inside the new text object, choose “Insert menu > Floating Field”. Designer creates a new hidden text field and inserts a reference to it inside the text object.
3. Switch to XML Source view (“View menu > XML Source”) and select the new text object in the Hierarchy palette in order to find it in the source.
4. Look inside for the //exData/body node. This will contain the XHTML (rich text) mark-up for the text object, including a span node that looks like this: <span xfa:embedType=”uri” xfa:embedMode=”raw” xfa:embed=”#floatingField000041″/>. This is the Floating Field Reference to the new hidden text field that was created when you inserted the floating field in a previous step. Select the span node and copy it.
5. While still in XML Source, select the text field you inserted (not the Floating Field text field that Designer inserted) from the Hierarchy to jump to its mark-up and look for the //value/exData/body. That’s the XHTML mark-up for the text field’s rich text value. Scroll to the location, in the XHTML, where you want the floating field value to show-up and paste the Floating Field Reference mark-up you copied earlier.
6. Switch back to Design View and you should see something like “{TextFieldName}” inside the text field’s content area at the location within the text where you pasted the reference.
7. Give a value to the hidden text field (the actual Floating Field).
8. Preview the form. You should see the value of the Floating Field inside your text field.

Now if you want a value from a database to show-up inside your text, just bind the hidden Floating Field (text field) to a node inside an ODBC data connection.