Filling In Form Fields & Saving Completed Form

I thought Adobe was now allowing the saving/printing/emailing of PDF forms. If this is not the case, it needs to be added. It's a burden to require customers to upgrade just so they can fill in a form and do something meaningful with it.

I was under the same impression also that Reader could do those things, but it can't. After so much research, I've finally found out that Adobe reader version 8 (with user rights enabled), will let you save your data, but only in the PDF, that is, the PDF file is saved with the data saved in it as a PDF file. You can't save your data separately using either the ExportData command or the exporrt menu.

Unfortunately, Adobe leaves the claims of saving data so vague, that most people assume it can export the data separately from the PDF. You can't even email the data either.

You can use the importData() command though, just not exportdata().

You must buy either the Adobe Reader extensions to extend Adobe Reader or buy Acrobat Standard or Pro to export data which is probably too costly for most peoples use.

Correction, you can email your data using a Submit button with user rights enabled, you just can't export

In order to have your user be able to save a filled-in form; you have to do the following:

1. Create your form in Acrobat 8 professional
2. As this last step in making the form, "enable usage rights in Acrobat Reader." This tool is found under "Advanced" in the menu bar.

One thing that will make it easier for the person filling out the form to return it to you is to put a "submit" button in the form, with your email address in it. That tool is found in the Forms tool bar. Read over the help files or a good book on Acrobat forms.

The person filling out the form will then be able to submit the form back to you in one of several ways; depending on your choices in setting up the button. Hope this helps!!

Carrimak

I have tryed to do the fillable forms. Have called Adobe several times on this but what they tell me isn't working. Can anyone tell me step by step how to do a pdf form from a word document. I can get it emailed to the person, but when she opens it, she can print it, but cannot save it to the computer. I have tryed different things. I would appreciate any help.

Thanks,
Jan

To return a form by e-mail the recipient would need to be able to save the form prior to mailing. Any user with a full version of Acrobat can e-mail a completed form by e-mail. Users with Reader can not as a rule return a completed e-mail form.

For a user with Reader to return a completed form by e-mail, the creator of the form must apply Extended Save Rights to the form. This function is only available to Reader Extensions Server and Acrobat 8 Professional. If you do not have either of these products, you will have to pay a third party vendor to enable these rights

I have created a form on Acrobat 8 and have enabled rights to Reader. When a client with Reader tries to open the form, she receives a message indicating that the form had rights enabled but rights have been canceled because the form has been modified. Have you any suggestions?

Maurine...you need to be sure that the LAST thing you do to your form before sending it to a client is enable rights; then save it. Any changes after that may make Acrobat consider that the form has been "modified."

Maybe best to make a copy of the form at this point and go through it again; saving under a new name.

Hope this helps....

Maybe not the problem, but I encountered a weird one with a reader enabled form when the recipients computer clock was way off. The message was:

"This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and the rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document."

In effect, he was opening the pdf at a date/time BEFORE the pdf had been created (time warp, I guess). By correcting the time on his system, the PDF became rights-enabled again.

This issue was addressed in the 8.1.2 update. For more information visit the following URL:
http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=kb403079&sliceId=1

BryHal, thanks for that insight because that seems to be the cause of my problem in that forms enabled on my computer work fine, but when sending to someone else, they get that message. thanks!

Can the "enable usage rights in Acrobat Reader" be done in Acrobat Professional 6 or do I need to upgrade to 9 in order to let my agents customize and save the text fields in the forms I create. Right now, they are unable to save the info and their only option is to print it.

The ability to apply forms usage rights was introduced with Acrobat 8 Pro, so yes, you will need to upgrade.

Please be aware of the licensing restrictions regarding enabled documents. In short, if you deploy an enabled PDF form to more than 500 recipients, you may use information from no more than 500 returned forms, including hardcopies. If fewer than 500 recipients, there is no limit. There are other options if you need to exceed these limits.

George

Thank you. I thought I was going to have to upgrade. At least I have backup now to get the company to buy it.

I keep reading that the problem with the message:

"This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and these rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document"

was addressed in 8.1.2. However, I am seeing this with some of my form recipients that are using Reader 9.

My form was created using Acrobat 9 Standard. The last thing I do is enable reader rights. The person filling in the form opens it using Reader 9, fills in part of the form (it is a form that is intended to be filled in over a period of several months), then performs a 'Save As' and gives the document a new name. Then, the next time they open it, add data and try to save it again (standard 'save' this time, not 'save as'), they receive the message quoted above.

The perplexing thing about this is that I can mimic all of these same steps in my office, on computers with only Reader (Acrobat is not installed) on it (have tried all versions of 8, and Reader 9), and I can do it successfully, and have never received the error message.

Does anyone have any insight as to why this is happening and/or how to rectify this problem?

Thank you in advance for any thoughts anyone might have on this topic.

How are you distributing the document to your users? How many of your users (approx. percentage) are experiencing this?

George

The form is being distributed by simply attaching the document to an email and sending it.

This is a form that I was asked to create for use at a clients location, so it has only been distributed to them. Therefore, the problem is occurring with 100% of the form's recipients (1).

Thank you

I am having the same problem. The file has Reader usage rights enabled and is placed on the LAN. The users retrieve it from the LAN, fill it out and save it to their personal directories (either on the LAN or on their local hard drive). One user is experiencing this message after a few times of making changes to the file and saving it. No other users have reported this error.

I have the same problem with in enabling Extend Features....
I created a form in LiveCycle ES 8.2 and then I opened it in Adobe Acrobat Pro 9 Ext and chose Extend Features.... from Advanced menu. Then I saved new copy on my desktop.

Then I opened the file in Acrobat READER 9 and I could fill the form in. In next step I send it by Skype to my friend who is using Acrobat READER 9 (downloaded on today) and she gets following message:
"This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and these rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document"

I have no idea what I am doing wrong. I believe I read almost everything about Enabling user rights... but it doesn't work for me.

There is one more piece of information which may be important, I created the form in LC using one computer, while I was enabling Extend Features.... on some other computers. Both computers have the same version of LC and Adobe Acrobat Pro.

I am desperately looking for help as my staff is pressing me to give them form to fill out....

Thx in advance

Are you doing a Save As when you copy to your desktop? If so, this may be disabling the reader extensions.

I am following the steps which I read in the manual and on this forum. I am opening the pdf created in Live Cycle in Adobe Acrobat Pro, choosing Advanced>Extended Features.... then a window popping up and I am hitting Save Now button.This newly saved file I can open on the same computer with Acrobat Reader 9 but after sending the file to my friend via Skype or copy paste she gets following message:
"This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and these rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document".

Nothing was changed, I even send newly created file directly to her without opening it first in Acrobat Reader just to avoid potential modifying. I tried to zip the file before sending and the same message pops up.

I know it should work coz I am filling in the IRS forms and they works great. I even copied my IRS form to the same friend and it works in her computer. Thus I suspect that there is sth wrong with my file/form.

I can upload my form somewhere if any one would like to check it.

Why don't you try uploading your file to [url=https://acrobat.com/]Acrobat.com[/url] (free service) and then have your friend open the file from there? This way we can figure out if it's got something to do sending the PDF.

I uploaded the file here https://acrobat.com/#d=cFiOSr2BPGtFYDitOG1kQg

It has enabled Extended Features... and it wasn't opened or modified since I created it.

I do hope you will find the reason why my employees can't fill it in.

Thank you

Any clues what is wrong with the file or what I am doing wrong? I have tried everything I know but nothing helps.

Thx in advance.

Hi quillerpl,

I just downloaded your file from Acrobat.com, opened it in Adobe Reader 9.1, filled it out ( well not all the way but I filled in Collection, Designer, and created some new rows and chose several radio button options and made some special comments based on radio button) and Saved it to my computer with no problems. I closed and reopened it in Reader and the data I saved was still there.

So not sure what is happening with the Skype send/transfer but that may be causing a problem. It worked fine downloading from Acrobat.com

Hope this helps,

Dimitri
WindJack Solutions
www.pdfscripting.com
www.windjack.com

Hi Everyone

Thanks to Paul from the forum I figured out where was the problem.
The message: "This document contained certain rights to enable special features in Adobe Reader. The document has been changed since it was created and these rights are no longer valid. Please contact the author for the original version of this document", was displayed because there were two different times set up on my computer and my staff's computers. My system clock was set up to Hong Kong time zone +7 while my workmates computers were in Central EU time zone +1.
Time of modifying the file was different therefore the message was displayed.

I do hope it helps others with the same problem. Check the system clock on your and your client's computer.

Thx Paul for the hint.

I read the complete postings on this since I was facing the same issue. I have editable PDF designed using Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES 8.2 which I need to upload it to my web application which can be viewed on the browser by other users to fill it and submit it using the Submit button provided inside the PDF itself.

My issue is my web application will be accessed by users from different time zones. I am sitting in India and designing the PDF from here and uploading the designed PDF to my web application hosted on US server and accessed mainly accessed by users from US time zones, but other time zones also uses it.

How can I fix this timezone issue in my case?

Any input for this will be highly appreciated.

Apart from this when I enable the special features for Adobe Reader, most of the text fields added to my editable PDF are not editable any more.

Please suggest me.

Help, I made a user rights enabled form and my client can fill it in but can not print it. I had him save it and save as and still prints blank. Does any body have any ideas about this?
thanks