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I have a basic 2 page form, converted from a word document.

I gather that I must use the TouchUp Reading Order panel to draw boxes around the content and specify its type (Text, Form Field etc) and order.

My main issue is that it keeps merging my boxes together e.g. sequential radio buttons get merged into one Form Field even though I have only drawn the box around one. It is incredibly frustrating.

I'm also unclear as to exactly what I should be selecting. Take this for example:

enter image description here

14 is a radio button which I assume is to be Form Field, but what about 11 and 13, are these text or Form Field? And 12, which is a textbox, this is to be Form Field too right?

Appreciate any help

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    Depending on how many different forms you're going to make, how nice this is going to look and your proficiency in InDesign: I would recommend taking a tutorial in how to create forms in InDesign and then import them to Acrobat. (You do most of the work creating fields etc. in Indesign then you finalize in Acrobat.) Importing Word files to create/auto-generate forms is usually very unsatisfying. You can get decent results from importing Excel files. Also, there is a forms function built into word, so if you need to keep the Word doc and want to do this quick and dirty, just do it in Word. – HaraldCFS Oct 25 '17 at 17:09
  • I'd second this. When I've had to build forms that were destined for print first, this is where I would do it. It may take a bit of time to set up the first time, but there are tools in InDesign to make the PDF export process much easier. – karolus Dec 16 '17 at 17:27
  • "converted from a word document" <-- there's your problem entirely. – Scott Feb 14 '18 at 18:06
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Radio buttons are a grouped-field item, they are not checkboxes.

The radio button metaphor is from the old push-button presets on a car radio: the button remains depressed (latched); only one can be pressed; and the previously latched button is released.

One uses radio buttons to limit the input to one single entry out of a limited set of specified choices. The result is assigned to a single field.

This is probably the reason the software is forcing a grouping: they make no sense without at least two options and cannot be deselected.

So if your field is "Foo?" and you store "yes/no" then use a checkbox.

If your field is "Which Foo?" and you want to limit it to "bar or baz or bizizzle," then use radio buttons.

If you like the look of radio buttons for checkboxes, but cannot "reskin" or select a different look as an option for a checkbox, don't use radio buttons (again: they cannot be deselected).

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