We created a fillable pdf and distribute to customers for completion. Sometimes we need to correct the customer entered data values in the form fields using the free Adobe Reader. This has worked well for over a year and this week we received 2 completed forms we can no longer edit. Security details show filling of form fields is allowed but Adobe Reader can't modify.
The distributed pdf was created using a paid version of Acrobat. Document properties of that pdf show the PDF Producer is Adobe PDF library 15, version 1.6 (Acrobat 7.x). Both the problem pdf's changed the PDF Producer to PDFium, version 1.7 (Acrobat 8.x)
The free Adobe reader is up-to-date, version 2021.005.20060.
Update: I used UglyToad's PdfPig and see all the AcroField Text Boxes no longer exist in the pdf, but the checkboxes are still present. Issue now is why is PDFium removing the textboxes, and I'm going to guess it changes them to image.
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I am having issue to view XFA PDF in Google chrome. I am able to open the same PDF in Acrobat reader but when I view in chrome I get “Please wait...” message.
Can you please let me know if there is any solution to fix this issue?
The XML Forms Architecture is deprecated in ISO 32000-2 (released in 2017). One of the reasons for deprecation was the fact that adoption of XFA was poor. This wasn't a problem when Adobe Reader had a high penetration, but it became problematic with the advent of pdf.js, Chrome's PDF viewer, Microsoft's PDF viewer, etc. None of those viewers supported XFA. Instead of rendering the XML stream, they just render the single (static) PDF page that is usually stored inside an XFA document. PDF renders much quicker than XML, and the static PDF page saying "Please wait..." was there to bridge the gap between opening the document and rendering the XML in Adobe Reader. It's also the page that is shown by PDF viewers who don't support XFA. Those viewers know how to render the PDF part of the form, but they don't know how to parse the XFA stream.
To make a long story short: there is no fix for your issue. Google Chrome doesn't support XFA, and as XFA is deprecated, Google Chrome won't support XFA in the future either.
There might be a workaround if you are allowed to flatten the form. For instance: XFA is often used as a templating format.
The template defines what a final document has to look like.
XML data is merged into the template.
The XFA template with the data is flattened to an ordinary PDF document.
Once an XFA form is flattened to an ordinary PDF document, the document is no longer interactive. No data can be entered; all interactivity is gone. There is no XFA XML stream inside the document anymore.
There are two products that can flatten an XFA form: Adobe LC Enterprise Suite, and iText's pdfXFA add-on. Both of these products are closed source, commercial products.
I've got a version 1.4 PDF created by using the R-function "pdf". The file contains six pages and has 135 KB. Now I want each of these pages in a separate file in order to include it as picture in Latex. Since I have not only the Adobe Reader deleting pages isn't a problem, but after a page is deleted from the document Adobe Acrobat automatically changes the version to 1.6, which then causes problems in Latex.
I've now tried to save it as version 1.4 PDF, which itself isn't a problem, but the file size then increases from 28 KB to 759 KB and my final PDF mustn't be larger than 3 MB. I've already played a bit with the compression settings, but the size doesn't really change. Why does Adobe change the version automatically and how can I extract the pages without blowing up the size that much?
Acrobat is always setting the PDF version to its own level, even if the file itself would be compliant to an earlier standard. It has been doing so since Acrobat 2…
You can control quite a few things when you do Save as… --> Optimized PDF. There you can also set the standard at which the document is saved, and many more things.
About the file size, it really depends on what your document contains. It is also possible that your PDF creation tool creates an incomplete document, and saving it in Acrobat will create a more complete one (think of embedded fonts, etc.).
I'm creating a PDF using iTextSharp and it contains some fillable form fields. What I need, is to somehow set it up so that when those form fields are filled in and the resulting PDF is saved (in one of the commercially-available PDF readers like Adobe's Reader), I need those form fields to be fixed text (no longer editable).
Is there any way to do this?
As a comment suggests, this sounds like "flattening the document".
The issue with that process is that it is not available in (Adobe) Reader; it would require Acrobat, or server-side help.
On the other hand, some mobile PDF viewers do actually offer flattening when saving.
The workaround for Reader is to set the fields to read-only when saving the document. You would do this in the willSave Document Action by looping through the fields and setting them to readonly.
Simply Print your document as PDF. This will flatten the file.
For this
1. Install Adobe PDF Printer or CutePDF or some similar tool.
2. From your document. Select File -> Print.
3. Select Printer as the tool you installed in Step 1.
4. Your document will be a flattened, non-editable PDF now.
We have a requirement to convert XFA Form (Adobe LiveCycle Form) to PDF/A-1B.
We're attempting to use iText 5.4.0 to parse the PDF, populate the XFA fields and then save the modified PDF back out.
All the examples I can find with iText talk about populating XFA fields into PDF.
Can I convert an XFA form ( static / dynamic and generated using LiveCycle) to PDFA 1b directly?
As need PDFA for sure and can’t live with plain PDFs. So as workaround we were thinking about converting the PDF to PDFA. Is that the right approach or we are missing something here.
You can also use Adobe LiveCycle Forms Server or PDF Generator for this purpose. It supports conversion of XFA-based forms (either static or dynamic) to either PDF/A-1b or PDF/A-1a.
Yes, you can convert XFA forms to PDF/A using iText in combination with XFA Worker. However, XFA Worker is a closed source product. So you need to be an iText customer if you want to achieve what you want.
Note that we've done exactly what you need in a project for the Ministry of Justice in Belgium. I've written the following blog post about this project: : http://lowagie.com/xfabpm
Disclaimer: I'm the CEO of the iText Software Group. This answer isn't meant to promote the product. It's a genuine answer to this question.
I was also looking for the same problem and I reached an easy solution, you can try this out:
Drag and drop it xfa format PDF into chrome, it will open in chrome browser.
You will find three options at right corner:
Rotate clockwise
Download
Print
Click on "Print"
Change destination "save as PDF" and save.
Saved PDF is flat PDF(Acroform) and can be edited easily
I previously had an Elance contractor generate a PDF form for me to use for invoicing purposes.
I like the form, but I only can open it using Adobe Reader(Mac) and not Preview.
Recently, I came across a form that can be opened and filled in using Preview AND Adobe Reader.
See here
My question is, how do I generate a PDF form that can be opened in both Preview and Adobe Reader?
I am asking for both:
manual generation (using a software or an application like Word or
Adobe Professional PDF)
programatically (using code or library,
preferably open source)
There are two main types of PDF forms, AcroForms, and XFA forms. Although I have not tested this, I suspect that if you want a PDF form to work with the Preview application, it should be enough if you avoid using XFA forms (usually PDF forms generated by Adobe LiveCycle) and embedded javascript code inside your PDF files. PDF forms using action buttons like "Clear Form", "Print" and "Submit" for example will always involve some javascript code.
Recommendations for libraries that allow you to create these forms will depend on the OS that you want to use for creating them, the programming language, etc. This question seems to have an extensive list o such libraries.