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Disabled menu item

Forum Index > JavaScript > Disabled menu item
2008-11-13 16:10:32
jrfray
Registered: Nov 13 2008
Posts: 2
Answered

Using Acrobat Professional 8. The menu item Advanced/Document Processing/Document Javascripts is disabled for a particular document. Can you help us to understand why? My company downloads IRS pdf forms from the IRS website, adds javascript calculations to them, and posts them on our website. In the past we've had no trouble doing this. But with the IRS's newly released year 2008 forms the menu item mentioned above is disabled. This will put the company out of business if we've not able to find a solution. Please help. Thanks.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 8.0, Windows
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2008-11-13 16:53:53
#1
Dimitri
Expert
Registered: Nov 1 2005
Posts: 1389
Hi jrfray,

Which form from the IRS had this problem? I downloaded the new 2008 W-4 and the Doc Processing-Document JavaScript menu item was working for me.

If the IRS used LiveCycle Designer for a form or applied Reader Enabling Rights then what you are seeing is to be expected.

Hope this helps,

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

Dimitri Munkirs
WindJack Solutions
pdfscripting.com

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2008-11-14 08:23:46
#2
gkaiseril
Expert
Registered: Feb 23 2006
Posts: 4308
There could be a couple of causes of this problem. As Dimitri noted, LiveCycle Designer forms block a large number of Acrobat features. In addition, the creator of the PDF can cause issues, there could be a security restriction (not the IRS's public policy), and then there is the applying of "Extended Form Rights for Reader".

A quick check of some of the forms properties discloses the IRS uses different programs to produce different forms, there is no specific security method applied, but the forms for which some of the JavaScript processing is not available for have had the "Extended Form Rights for Reader" applied to them. This is verified by looking at the "Security" tab of the PDF's properties. There is also a note at the bottom of the Security window, that explains that these special rights can be remove by performing a "File > Save a Copy", version 8 Acorbat Professional.This situation has existed for some time. The IRS has spent a significant amount of money to add this feature so taxpayers accessing the forms with the free Reader product, could fill in the forms and keep an electronic copy of the completed form for their records. This has been an ongoing project since 2004, [url=http://www.planetpdf.com/enterprise/article.asp?ContentID=making_accessibility_a_reality&gid=6593]Making Accessibility a Reality at the IRS[/url], when the IRS started to provide fill-in forms and has been expanded to provide a savable copy for all taxpayers.Although this might appear as a problem or at least an inconvenience, I think the U.S IRS Department has helped promoted the concept of the PDF as a universal file format and promoted the PDF format as a type of interacticve form. They do not provide the calculations as they do not want to be responsible for any calculation errors, which is possible with some of the more advanced forms and calcualtions that might need to be done.

George Kaiser

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