FDF version problem?

[jmille34]

My client has a pdf that just prints, and he wants me to turn it into a form with fields and populate it from html/coldfusion. I did this successfully, but it only works for me, and not for him. I'm wondering if there is some version problem.

The original document shows:
pdf producer: acrobat distiller 6.0.1 (windows)
pdf version: 1.4 (acrobat 5.x)

We have acrobat 4 full at work, so I took the original there and edited it. I wasn't sure if it would even open, but it did, and the changes seemed to be successful. So anyway, I added the form fields and saved it, uploaded it to the web server, set up my server side scripts to write the FDF file, etc, and it all seems to work.

The problem is the client has not once been able to open it successfully. He has 4.0 free on one machine, it wouldn't work at all there.. gave an error message, but he still hasn't told me what it says. Then he tried 5.0 free, and that shows the fdf/pdf, but it does't fill in any of the fields.

The whole setup is published at

http://63.208.2.144/hugo

(click on form.cfm) if anyone is interested in taking a peak. I'm a server-side guy, so the fields are right up my alley, but all be damned if I have a clue what to do about the pdfs.

 

[tgreer]

Adobe has seriously mucked-up forms functionality through the various Reader and Acrobat versions. Acrobat Reader (which is what you mean by "free", I assume), can fill-out and SUBMIT forms, though it cannot save them locally. The exception is if the PDF has been created with a special server program (look-up "Reader Extensions" on the Adobe web site).

The entire mess is hard to understand, but if you want to create a fillable form that Reader can fill and submit back to a web server, then you'll need Acrobat Professional to create the form, and Acrobat Reader to use the form, and you'll need at least the same version number Reader, if not higher.

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

 

[jmille34]

That's not exactly what I'm doing. The web site collects information via whatever method and saves it to a database. Then at a later date the users are instructed to view "their" pdf, print it, and sign it. Of course the pdf is a single pdf with form fields, and I use the FDF method to populate the form from database data. The user never types on the pdf at all. They enter the data through html then at a later date they print it. The problem is that the last part where they view their data. The fdf seems to be correct, because it works for me, but not the client. I understand from your post that acrobat reader should be adequate, but is there a version incompatibility somewhere??

 

[tgreer]

Yes, possibly. I wrote of serving dynamic FDFs,

http://www.tgreer.com/fdfServe.html

, in case any are interested. However, I didn't test every version of Reader. I would think that Reader would be backward-compatible with any version of Acrobat-created Forms, but forward-compatibilty is doubtful.

The easiest troubleshooting technique would be to ask your client to download the latest version of Reader (7.05 at this writing).

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

 

[jmille34]

Wow, that's a nice writeup you posted. I wish I had found that instead of the jumbled up mess of a reference that I used to create my script.. hehe

Anyway, the client is now giving me a really hard time about versioning, because he apparently wants to support every platform from the trs80 forward. I think the best I could realistically do is to downgrade the source document to 4.0, re-open it in the 4.0 full I have at work, redo the form fields, re-save it, and make sure the whole thing is as 4.0 as I can possibly get it.

Since you seem to be good with this, would you mind taking a look at my fdf output?

http://63.208.2.144/hugo/form.cfm

At the top, choose the other radio button so it dumps the fdf as text instead of loading as an fdf so you can see my formatting. It is slightly different than the one you posted in your writeup, but the nesting appears to be identical except for putting the /F toward the end instead of the beginning like you do.. and a little bit of spacing and carriage returns here and there. But like I said, the pdf works for me on every machine I have tested.

I have now put double the time into reading and posting than into the original scripting, which took about 45 minutes! Gah!

 

[tgreer]

The FDF looks fine. I think your suggestion of "downing" the version of the PDF makes sense.

Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com