Isn’t PDF the universal format? Today my insurance man emailed me a PDF attachment. I have several PDF readers not to mention Gimp. They all come up with a single page display with the comment shown in the post’s title and the following message.
Is there a community solution to open these PDF forms? I had to receive the form in a fax!
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On 06/06/2013 08:36 AM, heboland wrote:
> Is there a community solution to open these PDF forms?
if you were to post the pdf file to a spot where others here could
try to open it, perhaps we could help you troubleshoot the problem.
personally i find that not every viewer can open any/every particular
pdf document… the reason, i think, is because over the years Adobe
has changed its methods and formats…
please mention which version of which operating system you have as
well as the versions of the several PDF readers you used…
i have (for example):
okular 0.12
Adobe Acrobat Reader 9.5.5 04/26/2013
PDF Mod 0.9.0
GIMP 2.6.11
ePDFViewer 0.1.7
at least one of those is almost always useful on any random pdf
made by whichever random pdf originator application…
On 2013-06-06 08:36, heboland wrote:
>
> Hello list, monitors!
>
> Isn’t PDF the universal format? Today my insurance man emailed me a PDF
> attachment. I have several PDF readers not to mention Gimp. They all
> come up with a single page display with the comment shown in the post’s
> title and the following message.
>
> Is there a community solution to open these PDF forms? I had to receive
> the form in a fax!
Why did you not try acroread (adobe)? It is not opensource, sure, but it is free (of charge). It is
the only thing that works with forms, AFAIK, and it is the one the sender checks.
Just install it from yast, click and shoot.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from oS 12.3 “Dartmouth” GM (rescate 1))
Thanks to all the responders! Sorry about omitting technical details.
Knurpht, this problem is with 12.3-64 on i7-3770 with lxde on kernel 3.7.10. My primary pdf viewer has been okular which can’t open the XFA pdf. Gimp also shows the message I posted previously. Also I tried ePDFViewer unsuccessfully.
DenverD, yes it would be nice to make this little file available to the list! Too bad I can’t attach it here! The various PDF viewers do provide different features, particularly printing to a file. When Gimp couldn’t handle this file I thought the PDF was bogus, but no! Any suggestions how I would provide the link you suggested?
vazhavandan, I didn’t realize that the adobe reader was in the repos! I use adobe flash player, so adobe reader isn’t that much more of a venture into closed source stuff.
robin_listas, I guess my reasons for not trying adobe reader was not realizing it was available from a repo and because okular has been such a capable viewer for almost anything. For example, it can handle the editable pdfs like tax and brokerage forms. Also it’s the best TIF viewer I’ve found.
So yes, i’ll install adobe reader from the repos, try it and report back. If I get a suggestioni about how to make this XFA pdf available to the list, I’ll take a shot at that too. Heboand.
On 06/06/2013 05:06 PM, heboland wrote:
> So yes, i’ll install adobe reader from the repos, try it and report
> back. If I get a suggestioni about how to make this XFA pdf available to
> the list, I’ll take a shot at that too.
i think once you have installed the Adobe reader you will loose the
need to post the file where we can fetch it to try to see it (because
you will see that nothing was wrong with the communities openSUSE,
but rather you were just using the wrong tool)…
if not, then put it in the public area of your (free) DropBox or
SpiderOak, or Google Drive or or or
and share it with anyone with its link, then give us the link, or or
or or
On 2013-06-06 17:25, dd wrote:
> On 06/06/2013 05:06 PM, heboland wrote:
>> So yes, i’ll install adobe reader from the repos, try it and report
>> back. If I get a suggestioni about how to make this XFA pdf available to
>> the list, I’ll take a shot at that too.
>
> i think once you have installed the Adobe reader you will loose the need to post the file where we
> can fetch it to try to see it (because you will see that nothing was wrong with the communities
> openSUSE, but rather you were just using the wrong tool)…
Unfortunately, some pdfs have features that only adobe acroread supports, this is a know problem.
Perhaps they are supported by less known viewers, also proprietary. I do not know the reason okular,
evince, etc, can’t display them. Maybe the documentation is not public, new features. Maybe they are
hard to implement. Maybe it is a terrible implementation.
It is also unfortunate that adobe does not sell their pdf creating platform on Linux, you have to
use Windows.
However, the OP can create a bugzilla on this at opensuse and get an official answer. It is possible
to directly upload there the file, that would be wonderful. I did that once.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from oS 12.3 “Dartmouth” GM (rescate 1))
DenverD, I can confirm that the repo adobe reader will open the XFA pdf. It has editable fields, but the completed form can’t be saved. It can only be printed. The legalese that comes with the app has a bunch of paragraphs to be agreed to. I found it interesting that paragraph 10 doesn’t apply in Germany or Austria! I think I’ll follow your advice and not try to configure a link to my file!
robin_listas, I’m probably taking the easy way out by not supplying my file, but see if what I have to say next covers your suggestion. BTW, I think quite highly of okular.
vazhavandan, good idea to post the birth cirtificate pdf. That XFA form is editable and the modified form can be saved. For the record tho, okular will open that and if you click on “Show Forms”, okular with edit those forms and save the modified file.
So guys here is my suggestion. I’ll try to install evince and see if it will open the XFA pdf that triggered this post. I’ll report back after that attempt. Heboland.
The evince install didn’t happen. Using yast > SW management, searching for evince only finds evi-lang which is described to be a language package for evince.
I think I’ll mark this thread solved since the adobe reader does provide the functionality I was asking for. Heboland.
On 06/06/2013 09:56 PM, heboland wrote:
> DenverD, I can confirm that the repo adobe reader will open the XFA
> pdf. It has editable fields, but the completed form can’t be saved.
check the permissions of the pdf, if you can read and write to it,
you can’t save whatever you put into the form’s fields…
On 2013-06-06 21:56, heboland wrote:
>
> Thanks again to the responsers!
>
> DenverD, I can confirm that the repo adobe reader will open the XFA
> pdf. It has editable fields, but the completed form can’t be saved. It
> can only be printed.
This is on purpose, nothing you can do about it. You can save the data you entered, though, and you
can print to a PDF file. Of course, that file would be readable, but the form functionality would be
lost.
Adobe reader can be configured to upload the form data to a special Adobe server. I think you may
also save a half filled form and retrieve it - but as I say, it needs that Adobe server. I have
never tried it on Linux, but I have seen it in use at government offices here (full Windows places).
Those forms can be very complex. Here they are used for some tax forms, and it does some
calculations and verifications with the data you enter. Ie, the form contains code, which is why it
requires Adobe reader.
> The legalese that comes with the app has a bunch of
> paragraphs to be agreed to.
With Adobe reader, or with the form itself?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from oS 12.3 “Dartmouth” GM (rescate 1))
On 2013-06-06 22:26, heboland wrote:
>
> I’m back replying to myself and the list!
>
> The evince install didn’t happen. Using yast > SW management, searching
> for evince only finds evi-lang which is described to be a language
> package for evince.
Something wrong, I can find it:
rescate1:~ # zypper se evince
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
--+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------------------+--------
i | evince | GNOME Document Viewer | package
| evince-devel | GNOME Document Viewer | package
| evince-lang | Languages for package evince | package
| nautilus-evince | Evince Plugin for Nautilus | package
| typelib-1_0-EvinceDocument-3_0 | GNOME Document Viewer -- Introspection bindings | package
| typelib-1_0-EvinceView-3_0 | GNOME Document Viewer -- Introspection bindings | package
rescate1:~ #
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from oS 12.3 “Dartmouth” GM (rescate 1))
I thought I was done with this thread and now I’m backpedaling!
DenverD, I have to respectfully disagree with you on the BC pdf saving! One thing that might make both of us right is that I use a FAT-32 partition as a shared partition between 12.3 and my virtual machine. My downloads go into /share. It could be that I’m being fooled about what is getting saved, but here (I think) will be an image of the saved BC pdf opened wiith ePDFViewer: Opps it has to be an URL! This offering doesn’t seem to work. Too bad! This URL works in FF.
%between%
file:///home/frank/SampBC.png
robin_listas, your code seems show evince to be a nautilus pluging. My lxde uses PcManFm, but I do have nautilus installed. Maybe I need to invoke nautilus to find evince. Searching nautilus in rpms gives this:
With the apparently bogus URL, this may not post so I’ll save it just in case. To make this post I had to pull the image tags off my URL! Are we at the end of this thread yet? Heboland.
>
> Thanks again responders!
>
> I thought I was done with this thread and now I’m backpedaling!
You will never be able to save those forms. I know, I have tried before you, it is not a permission
problem, those forms are designed that way.
> doesn’t seem to work. Too bad! This URL works in FF.
> [image: ]
> file:///home/frank/SampBC.png
Thats a local file on your computer. You have to upload it somewhere (not on the forum), and then
post the link here. You can use a pastebin, like susepaste.org.
> robin_listas, your code seems show evince to be a nautilus pluging.
Nope. It shows that there is a standalone evince package and that it is installed, and there are
other things, like a nautilus-evince plugin, which I don’t have installed. If you can’t find it,
there is something broken in your system.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from oS 12.3 “Dartmouth” GM (rescate 1))
How can you miss evince? It is in the main repos. Here is a screenshot of YaST installer showing evince package and the repo(bottom) where it is present.
>
> This is on purpose, nothing you can do about it. You can save the data you entered, though, and you
> can print to a PDF file. Of course, that file would be readable, but the form functionality would be
> lost.
If you want to see a form of that type, here you have a dozen, or a hundred, perhaps:
The data can be saved as a text file, or an empty copy of the PDF can be saved as well. Filled, no
way, and this is intentional. The documents have security settings, and may be signed with a
certificate.
(don’t bother to report this in a Bugzilla, they know already)
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from oS 12.3 “Dartmouth” GM (rescate 1))
robin_listas, what seems to be emerging here is that the PDF form information is stored separately in a text file. Is that text file visible? How is it liked with the form?
Since I thought this thread was over, I deleted the birth certificate file. For this latest surge, I downloaded it again. I noticed when I reopened it, it had the form information I had entered before it was deleted.
vazhavandan, thanks for posting images of your yast > SW manager. You have me at a disadvantage since I can’t post images of mine. My display format is slightly different from yours, but only the unchecked (not installe) evince-lang comes up. If I search my rpms for evince nothing comes up. Since you don’t have the -lang rpm installed, I was right not to install that.
I have the OSS repos configured, so I can’t explain the difference! I didn’t try to open nautilus, but looking at your installed files, I don’t have nautilus-evince or access to it. This must be a repo problem!
Some day I’ll learn how to include my images or the forum will simplify the methodology to show my display, but for now evince is out of reach for me.
Also I’ve learned here that a completed pdf form doesn’t get saved as such. The form information is stored separately.
Are we done with this thread now or do I still have more to learn from this? Heboland.