Overview
The Adobe Acrobat buttons allow users to create custom actions such as opening a link or saving the PDF in a completely filled out format. For these actions to occur, triggers must be created. These triggers can be things such as a "mouse click", hovering over the action button, etc.
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This tutorial will show how to set up an Action button that saves a filled-out PDF in Google Chrome.
The tool within Adobe Acrobat that is used to create an action button is “Prepare Form”. Select the Tool from the “Tools” option in the upper left of the screen (if “Prepare Form” has been added as a shortcut, it will be an icon of a pink document with the top right-hand corner folded over on the right side of the screen). Once the Prepare Form tool has been selected a new toolbar will appear in the upper center of the screen. Press the OK Icon on the toolbar ( in the upper center of the screen) to access the action button tool.
At this point, select where you want the action button to be placed on the PDF. Once the action button has been placed, a Field Name box will appear (a Field Name allows you to name the button so you can identify it if you need to move it to a different location in the document; Field Names are optional). To access triggers and actions of the button, first, double click (or right-click and select properties) the button to open up the properties menu.
Within the Button Properties Tabs, select the Actions Tab. The most common trigger is “Mouse Up” (Mouse Up is when the user releases the mouse button AFTER pressing down on the mouse button). The Select Action should be set to “Execute a menu item”. After these two settings have been set, press the “Add...” button. A list of Menu Items will now appear. The item needed to save the PDF in Google Chrome properly is File>Print... (selecting an item will automatically save the action and close the Menu Item selection box)
Before closing the Button Properties Options, Go to the Options Tab (between Position and Actions). From here, use the Label box to create a label for the button (this label is what the users filling out the form will see).
The appearance Tab allows for change of color of the button and font adjustments. The General Tab has a Tooltip feature that allows hints to be added for the user when they hover over the button (i.e. press this button to save the form).
The button can be resized by grabbing onto any of the corners and moving the mouse with the left mouse button held down. The button can also be moved by hovering over the button and holding down the left mouse button and moving the button to the desired location.
In the process of creating this action button, pressing this newly created button opens up the print box dialogue. To save the document as a filled-out PDF, switch the output format to PDF format. This will usually be labeled either “Printer” or “Save As” Finally press “Save” or
“Print” (Adobe uses terms such as Printer and Print and Google Chrome uses terms such as Save and Save As).
After selecting the document output file type (PDF) and pressing Save/Print, a dialogue box will appear asking you where the PDF should be saved (Desktop is the most convenient). After choosing the destination of the PDF, you will need to name the document and press the Save button.
You have completed this Adobe Acrobat DC Pro Action button Tutorial