Acrobat-profilter: subscript

July 3, 2008 8:35 AM

I am using adobe acrobat pro 8. I have a basic text field in a simple form. How in the hell do I get a subscript character in there (I want put in the text "H2M DEVELOPMENT CO." with the "2" as subscript)? Is this something boneheadedly simple I am missing? I can do it in two seconds in any word processor...your help will be mos appreciated - thanks in advance!!!
posted by kjl291 to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

There's no way to do it in the app that I'm aware of --- Acrobat really is not meant for hardcore text entry. You could set the text in another program and use a subscript glyph (not subscript style, but the actual glyph) and paste it into the form field. That should work.
posted by nathan_teske at 8:59 AM on July 3, 2008

Whenever I need to use special characters in a form, I fire up FontStudio (expensive) or FontForge (open source) and add a glyph to the character set, making sure that the font is editable and embeddable. If the font has a subscript or denominator "2" (some do), you're gravy. If not, you will need to add one. This is much less difficult than it sounds, although there is a learning curve.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:33 AM on July 3, 2008

Thanks for the input. I'm afraid I am not clear on the whole "glyph" thing. Is that like inserting a "special character?" I have tried that, and while I did find a superscript 2 and 3, I did not find subscript (although maybe I am missing it). Trying in MS Word and OpenOffice Writer...
posted by kjl291 at 9:33 AM on July 3, 2008

The word "glyph" refers to a single character in a font - A, B, {, |, 8, whatever. Some fonts have the minimum number of glyphs (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) because they are shitty freeware fonts, while some have anything you can imagine and way more.

After checking, I've found that the widely distributed font "Arial Unicode MS" has a subscript and a superscript for all Arabic numerals. If it supports editable embedding (I haven't checked), then that would work. Are you creating the form or just filling out some paperwork? If it's the former, and you must have it done, MeMail me. If the latter, you are probably S.O.L.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 9:51 AM on July 3, 2008

OC - you're the man (assumption)! That did the trick. Thanks so much!
posted by kjl291 at 9:59 AM on July 3, 2008

Glad I could help. Let me know if you have any other Acrobat form questions.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 10:13 AM on July 3, 2008

You know when you shoot up in bed at four-thirty in the morning because you just remembered that your left your pacemaker batteries in Amarillo? This is why I am posting at four thirty in the morning - do not embed the entire font in your Acrobat document unless you have to. Arial Unicode MS is about 20 megs in size because it includes a truly staggering number of glyphs. Like, fifty thousand.

Anyway, don't embed the whole thing. Subset it.

Back to bed.
posted by Optimus Chyme at 4:48 AM on July 4, 2008