Can't save form data

If you have ever looked or downloaded a Government Form, You will find you cannot save the form. You can print it. If you could save the form, it would be copied immediately and others could use your work. I believe you can only save the fill-in material or download the blank form. For your purposes of copying the completed form, I use a print screen and open a freeware/shareware called Photofiltre to PASTE AS A NEW IMAGE.
Hope this helps.

Saving a filled out form to the hard drive or emailing it, from a PDF displayed in Reader requires Reader Extensions. It doesn't matter what Acrobat version you are working with. This has always been true.

You can apply Reader Extensions (also called Rights) to a PDF with Acrobat 8 professional. Look on the Advanced menu item.

Many thanks for your reply.

Just one other thing - can I create Forms in Acrobat Pro 8 on a Mac? Or can you only do this on a Windows machine using Acrobat Designer?

Acrobat supports 2 different forms technologies, AcroForms and LiveCycle Forms. LiveCycle Forms are built with the LiveCycle Designer tool. These were added to Acrobat in version 6 and the Designer is only availible on Windows. AcroForms are built in Acrobat Professional using the "Forms" toolbar. These were added to Acrobat in Version 3, and are availible on the Mac.

So the answer is yes, you can build AcroForms in Acrobat Pro 8 on the Mac.

Thanks for the tip about the Advanced Menu. I had the same issue today!

I tried to Enable Rights in the Advanced menu but when I tried to save the file I got a message "This document can not be Rights Enabled?. What does this mean? Help.

There are a couple of reasons, if the file has security on it, or if it already has reader rights.

There is no security on the file. Everything is "allowed" and rights are not already enabled because if they were I'd be able to fill in and save the form.
Further to this, I CAN open and edit/save the file on Acrobat 9 on one computer, but when I sent it to my other computer and opened it with Acrobat 9 I could NOT EDIT/SAVE the file.
Any other clues?

Odd, you're seeing different behavior on the same form displayed in the same program, but on different systems? Can you put the form someplace where it can be downloaded? Acrobat.com for example.

There are many different Reader Rights, save rights is just one of them. So, the Allowed list can give you a clue, but it doesn't tell you everything.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

It very well could be because of Reader 7. Have you tried this out on different versions of Reader? The Adobe developer site has an archive of Readers for the very purpose, so you can do testing.

But, if any change that's not quite official for the rights can invalidate them. For example, is there JavaScript on the form that changes a border color, or hides/shows a field? This could be a problem.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

I did some testing and did not see any problems with enabling a form(over 1Mb) in Acrobat 9 and then using it in Reader 7.

A few questions,
1. Does this happen on other versions of Reader?
2. Have you or anyone besides the client tested it on Reader 7 and seen the same behavior?
3. Have you created other files that display this behavior? or is it just one?
4. Does the form have any scripted features?
5. Is the client doing anything to the form besides filling it out?

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Reader Enabling can be broken, and it looks like that's what's happening. Enabling is broken when a change is made to the PDF that is not allowed by the specific Reader Rights. There are differences in how the enabling is handled between different versions of Acrobat. So it's possible that the rights might allow something to change that's ok in 9 but breaks in 7. This is why I asked about scripted features. Something as simple as hiding/showing a form field, or changing a border color could do it.

So, is there anything going on with the form besides a simple fill and save?

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

I would suggest disabling and/or testing each feature individually. This will clue you in the to exact culprit.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

Does your client have the latest update to Acrobat 7? Can you post the form to Acrobat.com?

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

You need to use the "Share" utility which will give you an URL for sharing and I think, event ask you for a list of emails to send it too. Just copy the URL and post it here.

I've got the same issue with Acrobat 7.1. It looks like Acrobat 7 is just not going to work. I didn't find any dangerous scripts. It looks like the Percent formatting is the only script on the PDF. This is odd since I was able to enable with 9 and have a form work in 7. It could be an issue with the Mac.

Have you tried enabling in Acrobat 8 Pro?

At this point I'd suggest contacting Adobe support, as painful as that might be.

Thom Parker
The source for PDF Scripting Info
[url=http://www.pdfScripting.com]pdfscripting.com[/url]

The Acrobat JavaScript Reference, Use it Early and Often
[url=http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php]http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/javascript.php[/url]

*sigh*... does no one know that the human spirit is indomitable? No limitations imposed upon men ever stand. When men cry freedom it is the sound of their chains they rattle... blah blah blah...

The attempt at keeping back the horde is thwarted easily by doing as follows: Download any number of PDF format printwriters and install it. These install as printers and write out PDF files to disk as if they were printed documents. [Thus one needs the PrintSpooler service running but if you never turned it off or disabled it, you will have it running anyway since it is by default an auto-start service.] Anyway, I like CutePDF (www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp) for this purpose, but there are others and they are 100% free. Be mindful not to install the damned Yahoo! toolbar or anything else as these things just plain suck.

So after you fill out the "unsavable" document, you then "print out" the document to a PDF writer such as CutePDF to a new .pdf document. You may then open that document in any PDF reader, including Adobe Reader.

But soft, you say, how can one make those fields re-editable again in the saved document? Off the top of my head, I dunno. But this gets you from point A to point B. Going from B back again to A... a matter for another day. Like tomorrow. =)

i've got a question regarding saving data on a form....

i am creating some forms for a county office. these forms may be used quite a bit. after the 500th form has been accessed, completed, and saved, will the county folks be disallowed from saving any more? if so, how can i get around this. thanks!

Hi,
On a monthly basis, I routinely pay sales taxes for both state and parish, payroll taxes, etc., via their websites and at any time can look up and save these forms. However, for some reason, I am not able to get a save feature on my desktop at home running Vista, unless I pull up a document that I already have downloaded within my system. While using Acrobat Reader 9.4, I can use my laptop, running on XP, which I keep at my business location, or any of several other computers that we use at another location, all still runnning on Windows XP. This is great, but very inconvenient when I am working at my office at home and could easily complete these tasks, save the documents, and continue on. Unfortunately, I have to remember to re-log in to the websites and save the documents later to a jump drive. I found this same issue occurred this morning as I was trying to download my bank statments after signing up for online banking. Can you help?