Why is document generator changing the PDF field name?

When building a mapping it is important to have unique field names so if you upload a revised file Smartsheet will find the fields and automatically remap them. Works great. However, when I use the prepare form function in Acrobat to create all my fields, Smartsheet changes the field names when I upload the document to the generator and most of them are not unique so revising the files and uploading them will not result in an automatic remapping. It's important because I have over 300 fields. If I create the fields in InDesign first and then export to PDF, the field names remain unchanged when uploading to Smartsheet, this is good, but I'd prefer to use Acrobat to Prepare Form and create the fields because it's much faster.

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Mike TV

@mccoy_FSI

You're not doing anything incorrectly so the community cannot assist by telling you how to correctly do it or how to do it another way. In this case, the other way would be to manually create the form fields with unique names but you already know that's a work around.

What you need to do is contact SmartSheet via a support request or an Enhancement Request to get them to change how SmartSheet is reacting to this Adobe feature.

Genevieve P.

Hi @mccoy_FSI

I agree that you're not doing anything incorrectly! 🙂

However I edited a pdf in adobe acrobat and the field names did not change (so they were auto-assigned in Document Builder).

My guess here is that this may be related to copy-pasting actions: the adobe quick view will make it seem like copy-pasted fields have different names incrementing by number, but the copied field name is actually identical to the copied object.

I do also agree that if this keeps happening, contacting Smartsheet Support through the Support Portal would be a good way to proceed, including a detailed walkthrough of your process, specifically:

How are the fields being created? (Imported? Copy and paste? Created individually as new fields?)
How is the field name being determined? (In acrobat? In document builder?)
How are you editing the PDF? (Is it the original uploaded PDF that they're editing? Are you copy and pasting fields to edit?)
An example PDF attachment and screen captures of your builder in Document Builder

Cheers,

Genevieve

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