Order of Field Export

[smccrary@rosemccrary.com]

Greetings,
First time posting, I hope this act is appropriate.

I am exporting form data from PDF-XChange Editor Plus (v.9.2 build 358.0, with enhanced OCR) to Excel.

The resulting file
(A) contains the fields in an undesirable and (mostly) indescribable order (maybe the order of creation?); and
(B) is missing most of the fields, i.e. they are not being exported.

Any way I want to change and set that order.
And have all the field exported.

How is this possible please?

Attached is example export.
In that file I only partially list the reorder that I prefer.
And I did not list all of the missing fields.

Thank you,
SWM

ExportFormFields.csv.pdf

[Stefan - PDF-XChange]

Hello smccrary@rosemccrary.com,

Welcome to our forums!
Yes - the fields are exported in the order in which they were created in the file, and there's no way to change this order I am afraid.

Can you please share an original PDF file with fields that you are unable to export and the resulting export file that you get so that we can run some tests with those?

Kind regards,
Stefan

[smccrary@rosemccrary.com]

Hello Stefan,
Thank you for the response.

Well that feature (field order during export) makes it very difficult to export, combine (from different forms), and share that data in Excel or a database, or is that a different function? I may be missing something, but isn't that an important feature for using Form data?

I am happy to send a file, but upon closer inspection, it appears that only fields with data are exported. Is that correct? If so, then it is working as you expect, but I would expect there of be a way for all the fields to export. Again, it would seem to be an important feature for exporting data.

I am not trying to be difficult here, sorry if it seems to be. I've used the form creating and sharing feature in other PDF editor's (without naming names). In those products, when a form is shared, the data coming back to the distributor is typically combined into a single file. That is what I expected here, but I am not trying to lay my expectations upon you. Is it possible that I am trying to combine various completed forms (into a single Excel file) using the wrong feature?

ciao

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, smccrary@rosemccrary.com

Although the Editor cannot do this yet, our PDF-Tools batch processing application may have a solution to your problem. It is able to export form data as a CSV from multiple files. This will find all the shared fields, and keep each value on a separate line per document below that. This way, you could process all the documents you need at once, and export the content into a single shared format.

image.png

Regarding the Editor's ability to export to CSV, I have spoken with the Dev team, and they are looking into the ability to change the export order, but at the moment we cannot make any promises that it can be changed.

Kind regards,

[smccrary@rosemccrary.com]

Greetings again,
Thank you for the information.

It is good to know that this capability is available in PDF-Tools.
But, I find that I do not have a license to use PDF-Tools..Is that correct?

I do have an old version of another PDF editor that I can use to do this.

Best regards.
steven

PS..BTW your screen capture snippet is barely readable on my screen, is that the resolution of the image, or my screen?

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, smccrary@rosemccrary.com

I cannot discuss account details on the forums but you can check here to see what your license type is and upgrade it if necessary: https://www.pdf-xchange.com/login

Regarding my screenshot, It is in full resolution, and I have windows scaling set to 100%, so it should be perfectly legible. If you ever see an image on our forums that you want to view in full size, simply click on it, and a lightbox should open to show it larger than the chat column allows.

Kind regards,

[smccrary@rosemccrary.com]

Understand the licensing, and thank you.

I thought I tried clicking on the image, but I tried again and it works, so maybe not.
Again thanks.

Regards

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

[Chinook]

Hello,

I would like to follow up on the information provided above. Is it still the case that the export order of fields cannot be changed, and that the fields are exported in the order they were created in the file, with no option to modify this order? If a user wishes to add new fields and change the structure of the forms, this could lead to the exported form data not accurately reflecting the actual forms, resulting in significant confusion in the data.

The only workaround I have discovered so far is to create a copy of the form, remove all existing form fields, and then manually copy the fields in the desired order from the old form. Unfortunately, I have found that this process has its own challenges, as I would have to copy approximately 100 form fields one by one. While this could be manageable, I have noticed that the copied form fields do not retain identical properties from the source, particularly layer settings and JavaScript functionalities.

For example, I have a date field in the source that displays a placeholder "DD.MM.YYYY" when empty. When the field is clicked, the placeholder disappears, and if the user clicks outside the field without entering a date, the placeholder reappears. After copying, I must recreate these scripts individually for each field, not to mention the more complex scripts and text displays.

Therefore, I am asking if there is a method to change the order of exported fields in any way, and if not, is there a more straightforward and efficient approach than what I've outlined?

By the way, I am currently using PDF-XChange Editor Plus version 10.5.0 (January 13, 2025) with the Czech language localization.

Thank you in advance for your help and recommendations!

Tomas

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Chinook

Regardless of the order the fields appear in within the export, on a later import, the data is associated to a field with the same name, regardless of the order it appears inside the data export file.

In practice, The order should not matter for any purpose except if you are trying to merge multiple separate export files into a single larger collective file.
In that case, our PDF-Tools batch processing suite offers the "Export Form data" feature, with a special CSV export option, to make one composition file from all the selected input documents.

image.png

Beyond that, while the Dev team has rejected manual configuration of the form data export order, they were open to the idea of an "append to" function, allowing you to perform a similar process to what PDF-Tools offers, through the Editor, except one file at a time. This will ensure that like named fields retain the same column, so you can later use the populate forms function to import that data to a PDF in bulk.

RT#7289: FR: "append" form export data - CSV
Like all tickets, this is an internal only, item, however, you can ask any member of the support team for a status update by citing the ticket number above.

Kind regards,

[Chinook]

Hello Daniel,

Thank you for your reply. I am personally familiar with exporting all fields to CSV, but I appreciate the information nonetheless; it will certainly help other users.

To clarify my needs, I am preparing new forms for the security department to record interviews with a large number of individuals, ranging from 500 to 14,000. The purpose is to facilitate easy analysis using spreadsheet applications, which will import data from XML or CSV for direct work with the information. Since there will be different cases with various questions, a uniform mapping cannot be used, and each form will need to be individually tailored.

Given that some users will have very low levels of IT skills, I need to present everything in the most user-friendly manner possible. The data must be imported in batches due to the volume (also considering potential delays in obtaining the information). If it were possible to set the order of columns in the source form itself, we could simply export the data using PDF Tools.

In the last case, for example, some fields were edited and corrected afterward (due to issues with the character set and according to the client's requirements), resulting in a situation where the correct order of columns should be academic title before the first name, first name, last name, academic title after the last name, and date of birth. However, the columns are exported so that academic titles appear in columns 130 and 131, the first name in column 5, the last name in column 80, and the date of birth in column 1. This does not even take into account the order of other fields, which were created by type rather than a logical structure expected during export—such as transaction data I to VII, transaction type I to VII, transaction amount I to VII. However, in the form (and for export), it would be ideal to have the fields arranged in this order: transaction date I, transaction type I, transaction amount I, transaction date II, transaction type II, transaction amount II, and so on.

To ensure that even users with very limited digital skills can export the data, I will need to either rearrange the fields in the form so that everything is correctly set for export without the need for additional adjustments, or program a custom macro in Excel for each case that retrieves the data and reorganizes the columns as needed (according to a logical structure). I would need to create a macro that can be triggered with a button, and from my experience, some users would still have difficulties with this.

While the "append to" function sounds appealing and could help in some cases, users would still need to ensure that they consistently match subsets of exports to a predefined template that has the correct column order for export.

Thus, a "hard" setting for the order of fields for export seems to be the most optimal approach to minimize errors for the end user and reduce the need for additional interventions on my part.

[Chinook]

By the way, as I mentioned, I am still having trouble copying the JavaScript actions when copying fields. See the image. Is there any way to copy fields completely, including scripts and layer settings? It would greatly help me with the 'hard' setting of the export order of fields.

Thank you very much for the communication and all the ideas and feedback.

Kind regards.

image.png

[Nimrod_189]

By the way, as I mentioned, I am still having trouble copying the JavaScript actions when copying fields. See the image. Is there any way to copy fields completely, including scripts and layer settings? It would greatly help me with the 'hard' setting of the export order of fields.

Thank you very much for the communication and all the ideas and feedback.

Kind regards.image.png

Hello Chinnoc,

I would go a completely different way.

It is much easy to read the CSV via VBA in Excel and then carry out the sorting than to change the PDF file every time.

That would be a universal solution and only needs to be programmed once.

[Chinook]

It is much easy to read the CSV via VBA in Excel and then carry out the sorting than to change the PDF file every time.

Hello Nimrod_189,

Yes, to a certain extent, I would have agreed with you earlier, but I have encountered two significant problems.

Firstly, there is a very, very low level of computing skills among end users. A few years ago, I created a comprehensive VBA script with my colleagues to load bank information from XML into Excel, which also evaluated some of the data. Everything was practically foolproof and really simple. The only thing that needed to be done was to enable VBA execution and press a pre-programmed button. Even so, to this day, I find that for some users, this remains an incomprehensible, insurmountable problem despite a pictorial guide . This might still be solvable.

Secondly, a bigger issue lately has been the performance of computing hardware and security rules set on the internal network. In the past, executing VBA scripts on those accounts, even on older PCs, took about a minute for 1,000 iterations of the script. Currently, however, Excel freezes for almost 15 minutes before the user can do anything . Despite having a relatively new computer (just acquired for government use, so nothing extraordinary), the performance has significantly degraded. Therefore, processing through PDF tools and direct loading is an incredible time-saver.

Personally, I would love to work in a "create, test, hand over, and forget" mode, but I fear that won’t be possible, and I will have to deal with it again myself. So, I would rather invest more time at the beginning to save time in the future. I’m afraid I will be the only one able to address these issues, and there will be a larger number of cases with differing content. I mean that there will be multiple types of forms—different sets of forms for each case being investigated. Each set will be filled out 500 to 14,000 times.

Unfortunately, I'm afraid that in the end, I will still have to use VBA to separate the individual segments in the table sheets according to the requirements, or they will copy it manually .

[Nimrod_189]

Hello @Chinnok,

so then something must be going wrong in your program. Excel is so fast, that can't be the problem.

I would

- turn off screen refresh
- use range references and don't jump to the Excel cells (macro recorder is death here)

But that's all just speculation on my part.

You can try to trigger the reading of the data with workbook events.

Nimrod

[Chinook]

so then something must be going wrong in your program. Excel is so fast, that can't be the problem.

Hello Nimrod_189
Thank you very much for trying to help me in another way.

But believe me, the main problem for us will be with Excel 2016. It is a program deployed on the internal network, and unfortunately, I have no way to change or reinstall it. It’s not just me; others also have trouble working with larger spreadsheets without functions and scripts that have more than 1,000 rows due to the same issue. At home, it runs fine, but at work, it’s hell. In VBA, it calculates the last row where there is data, then simply copies the formulas to the columns, applies filters, and adds other things like column width, etc. - only basic functions, but loading and processing a hundred columns and rows.

Unfortunately, we have to work with the sources and materials provided to us, but that’s the fate of government organizations with centralized management. It took me 7 months of diligent arguing, justifying, and explaining to obtain just one Xchange license, and that was only as a cheaper replacement for Adobe Acrobat Pro. But I don't want to complain—I’m grateful for it. I still believe that everything should be set up in the source form rather than having to fix it later through scripts. Unfortunately, we do not live in an ideal world.

Do you have any advice on how to copy in XCHANGE a form field along with its associated JavaScript actions? It can be quite challenging, especially since some fields with scripts repeat in the forms. Instead of simply copying the field and renaming it, I end up needing to relink all the scripts and set the layers, which requires quite a bit of unnecessary clicking. I mean copy to another document. Should I open a new thread for this?

download/file.php?id=31051&mode=view

[Chinook]

**SOLUTION for rearranging the order of fields**
I have found a solution for rearranging all the form fields so that they export in the order you want – or rather, as they are set in the order on the tabulator. The solution is ultimately quite simple and fairly quick – prepare your hand for the tabulator and keyboard shortcuts Ctrl+X and Ctrl+V.

I will navigate to the first field, press Ctrl+X to cut it, and then use Ctrl+V to paste it back – this will effectively recreate the field and give it a new order. As long as it's in the same document, all layers and scripts will be maintained. Then I click on the tabulator and press Ctrl+X -> Ctrl+V again, and so on until the end.

The only things to be cautious about are fields in hidden layers and duplicated fields (e.g., first name and last name if they are being transferred to a field in the signature clause – since that field appears twice, it can sometimes cause issues).

Sometimes the least complicated solution is the best one.

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Chinook

I am at least somewhat relieved to hear you have a "simple" method, even if it does sound rather time consuming. I have approached the dev team once again, asking if we can add an option in inherit the "tabulation order" during export, give your use case examples above, I do hope they see the merit. I will come back here to post again if they give me a positive reply.

Kind regards,

[Chinook]

Hello, Chinook

I am at least somewhat relieved to hear you have a "simple" method, even if it does sound rather time consuming. I have approached the dev team once again, asking if we can add an option in inherit the "tabulation order" during export, give your use case examples above, I do hope they see the merit. I will come back here to post again if they give me a positive reply.

Kind regards,

Hello Daniel,
I apologize for writing with such a delay. Thank you for all your efforts to help and for continually persuading the development team to resolve the issue. I’m hopeful that one day we’ll see a solution in a future update.

Kind regards,

[Daniel - PDF-XChange]

Hello, Chinook

Thank you for the nudge, I did manage to get a ticket (actually two!) made for this topic:

RT#7289: FR: "append" form export data - CSV
RT#7302: FR: option to "inherit" Tabulation order for CSV export

These are, as always, internal ticket numbers, and due to the complexity I cannot promise any timeline on these changes, but they are now on the list!

Kind regards,