Thanks to all you folks for your input! It's not something I need to send over
the internet, but will be handing it in in person. I'd just rather type it than
hand write it if possible, since I'm in no hurry and have plenty of time. I've
found two different copies. One here:
http://www.lakelanierislands.com/cms/pressroom/employment_application_llir_2013.pdf
and the other here:
http://www.lakelanierislands.com/cms/pressroom/application_for_employment_islands_mgmt.pdf
Thanks for the links.
The first one, is not intended as an editable form. According to
Wikipedia, an editable form is an "Acroform". So if you were
searching in Google, you might look for tools that work on
Acroforms. And even if you found such a tool (which should be
common), it wouldn't work with this form, because this PDF
is an "ordinary: one. In theory, Acrobat Reader could type
into an Acroform and save it, but I've never run into one of
those forms in causal newgroup work. Even government tax forms
aren't Acroform format.
It's possible a PDF editor could make changes. Security settings
on the document can stop that. I tried to install the free
version of PDF XChange, and it just sat there scanning my C:
partition for some reason, pretending to "figure out space
needed for installation". I shut the installer down and moved on.
So I couldn't test that one in my Vista test VM.
The first document appears to have a couple subtle features in
it, to make the kind of editing you want to do a bit more miserable.
If you look carefully at the "underlines" where you're supposed
to enter your personal details, some of them are regular graphic
lines (i.e. drawn in). While others are formed from a series of
underline characters (which could be edited with the right tool).
I believe someone did that on purpose, to piss me off
There
was no need of that. The form design could have been done
uniformly with just one way of doing it.
Based on the tools I have here, the most practical solution is
to pull the file into GIMP (similar to Photoshop), and just enter
text strings over top. And that is definitely not very convenient.
To do that, you download GhostScript and install it. Download
GIMP and install it. Go into GIMP, and tell it where to find
GhostScript executable. Use GIMP to open the PDF. The file is
converted to a bitmap. You type text strings over top, then print.
I tried re-distilling the document, but it uses embedded fonts,
and I don't know of a way immediately for me to undo that. The
embedded fonts were not really required, as the document fonts
are common ones available on all computers. Again, this smacks
of a deliberate attempt to make it difficult to use the tools
I want to use.
One thing that did work (impressed me a little bit), was
a copy of LibreOffice opened the first document. But (boo hiss),
the program could not render the document properly on the screen,
just like what happens when importing Word documents into
non-Microsoft word processing tools. So this one held great
promise. Maybe if I come back five years from now, that
one will work. LibreOffice is free software, based on OpenOffice,
and is an attempt to duplicate many of the capabilities
of the Microsoft tool suite. So far, LibreOffice came closest
to dealing with it. Maybe someone who succeeds in installing
PDF XChange, can test that one on the first document for you.
The installer for that program, is making me a little nervous.
*******
Your second document is a bitmap. That means you cannot change their
original text (the form headers and the like), without the equivalent
of "Photoshopping". Again, with the right tool, you can still add
text to that one. The second one is even less "computer savvy"
than your first form. The GIMP photo editing program could
do this one too, but again, entering text in a photo editing
tool isn't a lot of fun. You can't just "wipe" the area
you want to work in, and instantly get good alignment of
your text entry in the window. That's what an Acroform
version of the form would have done for you.
Also, when I tried to use the Paper Capture feature of
my Acrobat Exchange (paid copy), Exchange rejected the
document, saying it "wasn't a pure enough image". That
means there were elements of some type in the document,
that convinced it to not bother running OCR. I was hoping
to convert the bitmap back into text. Acrobat Exchange
(which isn't necessarily that cheap) has an OCR feature,
where it can convert a scanned bitmap back into text.
It works, but like any OCR, it can make mistakes. But
in this case, there must be something in the document
other than the bitmap I could see, and that prevented
the program from treating it as if it was "fresh off
a scanner".
Summary:
Convert both documents for Photoshopping, then add
your text in there. While PDF Xchange may work,
I'll wait for someone else to give that a try.
Some day, LibreOffice Writer will be able to do this.
Some day...
Paul
