Form Field Calculations in InDesign
With InDesign's form tools, we're missing the ability to add calculations to form fields in InDesign, and that task must be done manually in Acrobat.
To start, I'd like to be able to build simple calcs into my InDesign forms. Example:
And expense report has a form field for each day of the week, and then a total for all of the days. Would like a simple summation calc that I could use for rows of fields or columns of fields. Or both!
Another example: multiplication of quantity times price. Or multiplication of 5% sales tax on an amount field.
These are very common tasks that must currently be done in Acrobat, which is slow! Plus, in a regular workflow, the designer ends up redoing these manual tasks over and over in Acrobat as the form goes through multiple reviews and approvals.
If i could do these in InDesign, they'd be done once and then every PDF would have them already built in.
Bevi Chagnon | PubCom.com
shared this idea
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Anonymous
commented
Any updates on this? There's so many features I don't know that I need until I go to do them and find that they're only achievable in Acrobat. And like the OP said, if the file undergoes revisions of any type, then there goes potentially hours of work spent assigning fields to calculate totals or add number functionality.
Please, we need Acrobat's form functionality from the start.
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Robertson Adams commented
And here we are five years later and no progress from Warnock's kids.
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Ariel commented
Until this is addressed by Adobe, the FormMaker add-on for InDesign lets you do all this and much more, right inside InDesign: https://www.id-extras.com/products/formmaker/
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Marco
commented
the Form fields feature in InDesign is completely useless without calculations
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Barb Bear
commented
The simple task of defining a field as a number vs text would be helpful - so that every field in a form doesn't have to be redefined.
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Lara McCauley
commented
I'd appreciate knowing when this is resolved in InDesign. Also need to add calculations (simple) in forms and struggling with resources required to solve in PDF. May need to find an alternative form publisher.
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Pam Hausner
commented
It would be an incredibly useful if InDesign forms could do even simple calculations.
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Nora Kirkeby, production artist
commented
I just spent hours in forums trying to find a way to do this. I need to add formulas to 500 pages of a pricing guide and the idea of doing it all page by page, manually after I export it to acrobat is a non-starter.
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Aaron Kuehner
commented
Agreed. I'm finding as time marches on that we'd like to make nice looking forms or catalogs for customers that have interactive pricing. We also need to print such forms or catalogs. Excel is a pain in the backside for creating catalogs (unless duplex corner-staple becomes acceptable). This leads towards us making the same catalog in both InDesign and Excel. There are several thousand line items to update when we make company-wide price changes, across both files. Super confusing pain in the backside. I'd rather make this catalog once in InDesign and have it translate simple table calculations into interactive PDF form elements.