Software to complete Applications in pdf format

  • Thread starter Thread starter Martin*
  • Start date Start date
M

Martin*

Good morning,

I'm looking for freeware that would allow me to complete applications and
other documents that are in pdf format.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

TIA!

Martin
 
I believe the OP wants to be able to fill out ``form'' fields on Adobe Acrobat
..pdfs.

Unfortunately, the only software which can do that for arbitrary .pdf files is
the full version of Adobe Acrobat or the now discontinued Adobe Acrobat
Approval. At one time the latter was available for free on a CD-ROM from the
IRS, but not sure if that's still the case or no.

Adobe Acrobat Reader _can_ fill in such form fields, but cannot save the the
data with the typical .pdf (there's a special tool Adobe licenses for making
encrypted .pdfs which Acrobat Reader can fill in and then save, but it's
~$56,000 for just _ten_ forms).

Alternately, the person making the form can create a script so that the data in
it is posted to a web or other server, but again, that wants the full version
of Acrobat or special .pdf creation tools.

There are inexpensive programs which take advantage of the space provided for
storing script data to instead store form data, but they need a full version of
Acrobat to install them into a form, and Adobe has drastically decreased the
amount of space available for such storage of late.

William
 
William,

You're right about my wanting to fill out Adobe Acrobat pdf form fields.

Thank you for mentioning that Approval can accomplish that task.

I'm going to look for it on Google; however, if anyone reading this post
knows of a site where I can download it, would you please post the link.

Thanks.

Martin

| I believe the OP wants to be able to fill out ``form'' fields on Adobe
Acrobat
| .pdfs.
|
| Unfortunately, the only software which can do that for arbitrary .pdf
files is
| the full version of Adobe Acrobat or the now discontinued Adobe Acrobat
| Approval. At one time the latter was available for free on a CD-ROM from
the
| IRS, but not sure if that's still the case or no.
|
| Adobe Acrobat Reader _can_ fill in such form fields, but cannot save the
the
| data with the typical .pdf (there's a special tool Adobe licenses for
making
| encrypted .pdfs which Acrobat Reader can fill in and then save, but it's
| ~$56,000 for just _ten_ forms).
|
| Alternately, the person making the form can create a script so that the
data in
| it is posted to a web or other server, but again, that wants the full
version
| of Acrobat or special .pdf creation tools.
|
| There are inexpensive programs which take advantage of the space provided
for
| storing script data to instead store form data, but they need a full
version of
| Acrobat to install them into a form, and Adobe has drastically decreased
the
| amount of space available for such storage of late.
|
| William
|
| --
| William Adams
| http://members.aol.com/willadams
| Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
|
 
Martin said:
You're right about my wanting to fill out Adobe Acrobat pdf form fields.

Thank you for mentioning that Approval can accomplish that task.

I'm going to look for it on Google; however, if anyone reading this post
knows of a site where I can download it, would you please post the link.
Click to expand...

Sorry, should've made clear --- Adobe Acrobat Approval is a commercial software
program only available under license from Adobe.

As I noted, the IRS used to have a license to distribute it on a CD-ROM for
small businesses which they mailed out freely on request, Publication 3207
(2-2003) Catalog Number 26757M . Not sure if that's still available, or if
there's a newer version and if so, whether or no it still has Adobe Acrobat
Approval on it (doubt it, since Adobe didn't update that for v6 AFAIK).

There's no freeware for doing this AFAICT, which is really a shame, since it
really precludes .pdfs being the new electronic paper.

William
 
Thanks William for the clarification.

I'll contact the IRS on Tuesday, and hope that the folks there still have it
available.

Martin

| Martin said:
| >You're right about my wanting to fill out Adobe Acrobat pdf form fields.
| >
| >Thank you for mentioning that Approval can accomplish that task.
| >
| >I'm going to look for it on Google; however, if anyone reading this post
| >knows of a site where I can download it, would you please post the link.
|
| Sorry, should've made clear --- Adobe Acrobat Approval is a commercial
software
| program only available under license from Adobe.
|
| As I noted, the IRS used to have a license to distribute it on a CD-ROM
for
| small businesses which they mailed out freely on request, Publication 3207
| (2-2003) Catalog Number 26757M . Not sure if that's still available, or if
| there's a newer version and if so, whether or no it still has Adobe
Acrobat
| Approval on it (doubt it, since Adobe didn't update that for v6 AFAIK).
|
| There's no freeware for doing this AFAICT, which is really a shame, since
it
| really precludes .pdfs being the new electronic paper.
|
| William
|
| --
| William Adams
| http://members.aol.com/willadams
| Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
|
 
William said:
There's no freeware for doing this AFAICT, which is really a shame, since it
really precludes .pdfs being the new electronic paper.
Click to expand...

Just as well. I hate trying to read .pdf's. Hate downloading them,
too. Dimbulb enthusiasts get fancy and think they did something great,
but never try downloading the thing on a dial-up or viewing it on an
older monitor. The print is usually fuzzy, as well.

Portrait orientation on a landscape monitor? Tiny print bouncing
around between pictures? Notes under pictures indistinguishable from
text? Sidebars indistinguishable from text?
 
someone w/ a hotmail account said:
(re: .pdf form licensing not quite making them ``electronic paper'')
Just as well. I hate trying to read .pdf's. Hate downloading them,
too. Dimbulb enthusiasts get fancy and think they did something great,
but never try downloading the thing on a dial-up or viewing it on an
older monitor. The print is usually fuzzy, as well.
Click to expand...

Size is a function of what one attempts to do, and .pdfs compress well compared
to other formats.

``fuzzy'' print is determined by anti-aliasing which is a user-defined
preference.
Portrait orientation on a landscape monitor?
Click to expand...

There're .pdf viewers which can do rotation (I use the Glassbook Reader on my
penslate, and a rotated portrait .pdf makes good use of the display --- this is
also a nice way to use a laptop for reading), or one can view in two-up mode
--- I've a .pdf designed for that sort of thing in my on-line portfolio which
is included in the TeX Showcase. Look at http://www.tug.org/texshowcase for
Okakura Kakuzo's _The Book of Tea_
Tiny print bouncing
around between pictures? Notes under pictures indistinguishable from
text? Sidebars indistinguishable from text?
Click to expand...

One gets poor design anywhere, and whether it's provided as a .pdf doesn't
affect that much. Designing a .pdf suitable for printing and on-screen viewing
is even more of a challenge than just designing for print. But the .pdf format
opens up a lot of possibilities and works much better than any of the
alternatives for a lot of purposes, esp. those involving printing.

William
 
One gets poor design anywhere, and whether it's provided as a .pdf doesn't
affect that much. Designing a .pdf suitable for printing and on-screen viewing
is even more of a challenge than just designing for print.
Click to expand...

Pdf is not a free format, it is proprietary, owned by Adobe.
Pdf:s cannot be changed to suit the viewers preferences, like html can.
Pdf is not an information storage file format, it is rather the opposite,
it presents the information exactly as the author has composed it, the
viewer has basically no rights.

It is a format for control freaks, who want to decide exactly how others
are to view the information, and not use it in any other way than just view
it.

Making a pdf is like arranging a number of printed texts and pictures in a
certain way, then put a thick armored glass above it and make a box out of
armored concrete around it.
So the viewer can only watch the information through the glass, he cannot
access the information or decide for himself how to arrange the text and
pictures.

I feel sad when I see all these fools show up here, asking for programs to
create pdf:s with.
A few years later they show up again, asking for ways to break into pdf:s,
ways to access the information they, or somebody else, has locked into a
pdf.

Boycott the pdf file format!
 
no-email said:
Pdf is not a free format, it is proprietary, owned by Adobe.
Click to expand...

PDF is a _specification_ which Adobe originated. It's since been submitted to
ISO for a couple of different purposes --- PDF/X is one which is coming along
nicely. While Adobe is a member of the committee for pdf/x, they've been
over-ruled on a number of points and can't be said to own or control the
process / specification.
Pdf:s cannot be changed to suit the viewers preferences, like html can.
Click to expand...

One can however set a .pdf viewer to show .pdfs in a number of different ways
which suit many different uses. If you've a preference which isn't supported
have you looked at the source code to xpdf or suggested that change?
Pdf is not an information storage file format, it is rather the opposite,
it presents the information exactly as the author has composed it, the
viewer has basically no rights.
Click to expand...

Actually, rights can be set within the .pdf to allow different things (or
disallow them). Moreover, the newer versions allow ``tagged'' .pdfs which
provide for different presentations on different devices / screens.
It is a format for control freaks, who want to decide exactly how others
are to view the information, and not use it in any other way than just view
it.
Click to expand...

Or print it, or search it, or load it onto a Palm Pilot or Pocket PC to read
later, or use the .pdf as a calculator, or front-end to a database, or as a
math quizzing program. The acrotex web site has a lot of nifty examples.
Making a pdf is like arranging a number of printed texts and pictures in a
certain way, then put a thick armored glass above it and make a box out of
armored concrete around it.
So the viewer can only watch the information through the glass, he cannot
access the information or decide for himself how to arrange the text and
pictures.
Click to expand...

Using tools like pdfpages, one can arrange an (unprotected) .pdf any way one
might wish. There're also tools like Adobe Illustrator or Macromedia FreeHand
which parse a .pdf more readily than a .eps in many instances, and of course
programs like Adobe PhotoShop which can RIP a .pdf to allow arbitrary usage.

Cenon, http://www.cenon.info is a NeXTstep program making the transition for
free opensource and it can do quite a lot of things with .pdfs --- runs in
Linux using GNUstep, Mac OS X or OpenStep 4.2, possibly in Windows if the
mgstep libraries will support it.
I feel sad when I see all these fools show up here, asking for programs to
create pdf:s with.
Click to expand...

There're lots of them, many are free.
A few years later they show up again, asking for ways to break into pdf:s,
ways to access the information they, or somebody else, has locked into a
pdf.
Click to expand...

Well, it's rather a bad idea to lose the source to one's document --- it's now
possible to embed said source in a .pdf and send it along though (but I'm not
sure if there're any free programs for doing that). At one point in time, I was
experimenting w/ embedding non-visible tags in a .pdf to allow a document's
reconstruction --- actually used that to get a couple of books out of Quark and
into .rtf.

Cracking open a .pdf which someone else made is of course reprehensible. The
xpdf site has a nice comment on that.
Boycott the pdf file format!
Click to expand...

And your suggestion for an alternative able to do anything which it can is
what?

Take a look at my portfolio, http://members.aol.com/willadams and let me know
what document format could be used instead for the .pdfs there.

SVG is the most promising, but the viewer isn't particularly widespread, and I
want to support NeXT/OPENstep systems, both for sentimental reasons and because
I occasionally work on my web site from my NeXT Cube (there are .pdf viewers
for NeXTstep)

William
 
William said:
no-email said:

snipped for bandwidth<<

William
Click to expand...


OpenOffice.org - www.openoffice.org running on Mandrake Linux, you can
output the word document to a pdf generator, much like sending it to a
printer. In fact, the pdf generator is listed with the printers.
Mandrake Linux and OpenOffice are both *free*, no strings attached.
OpenOffice also runs on Win32, so you can goto their website and download
the Windows version, if that's what you run, and try that, I'm not sure if
it will have the pdf generator. If you read the help file from
OpenOffice, look up "pdf" and you'll see something thta addresses this.
Good Luck.
~Bob
 
I think the time for widespread use of PDF has come and gone.

Now, PDF does an excellent job of PORTRAYING exactly what the author
intended.

But look at what's been happening on the SGML / HTML / XML side. They're
trying to overcome HTML's worst problem. They're trying to separate data
from format. That's the right way to go. XML is moving in that direction.

PDF stands firmly at the other end of spectrum. It's a FINAL portrayal of a
document. Just fine for archiving static documents (legal papers, for
example).

But it's precisely what you DON'T want for living, working documents.
 
lhorwinkle said:
I think the time for widespread use of PDF has come and gone.
Click to expand...

Okay, what's the viable alternative for it now?
Now, PDF does an excellent job of PORTRAYING exactly what the author
intended.
Click to expand...

Which is precisely what .pdf is intended / used properly for.
But look at what's been happening on the SGML / HTML / XML side. They're
trying to overcome HTML's worst problem. They're trying to separate data
from format. That's the right way to go. XML is moving in that direction.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the implementations are lagging, and the only thing which competes w/
..pdf (visual presentation, font inclusion, rich graphics / precise typesetting)
is SVG for which there is an _extremely_ limited set of authoring tools, and
even fewer viewers.

And, oh yeah, this is alt.comp.freeware --- the freeware programs for doing all
this are what? Lessee, there's Eve, Amaya and the Adobe SVG viewer browser
plug-in. I don't mean any disrespect, but I want better drawing tools, a nicer
UI, and a broader support platform respectively.
PDF stands firmly at the other end of spectrum. It's a FINAL portrayal of a
document. Just fine for archiving static documents (legal papers, for
example).
Click to expand...

Which again, is what it's intended for.
But it's precisely what you DON'T want for living, working documents.
Click to expand...

Unless of course one wants a form-based front-end for a database on a server
which can be prepared w/ readily available tools which can be readily filled
out on-screen, w/ the option of printing a precisely matching version on paper
as a fall-back.

One of the things I do at my day job is programmatic XML publishing --- while
it's got its applications, there's a long way to go yet before the tools to
make it ubiquitous are widely available.

William
 
Roger said:
Pdf is not a free format, it is proprietary, owned by Adobe.
Pdf:s cannot be changed to suit the viewers preferences, like html can.
Pdf is not an information storage file format, it is rather the opposite,
it presents the information exactly as the author has composed it, the
viewer has basically no rights.
Click to expand...

I'd say preserving the original format of the presentation is part of
storing information, even if it's a PITA to read. That point does not
make me any fonder of Adobe.

I prefer HTML, but there are problems even there (bad eyesight).
Lackwitted site authors who link the display to a pixil width, and use
several columns are a big gripe of mine. Typically, I have to see if
there is a "printable display" option in order to read news articles,
but that's "poor design".
 
I prefer HTML, but there are problems even there (bad eyesight).
Lackwitted site authors who link the display to a pixil width, and use
several columns are a big gripe of mine. Typically, I have to see if
there is a "printable display" option in order to read news articles,
but that's "poor design".
Click to expand...

In html you have the choice of browser and you can set your favorite
browser to a minimum font size.

I have done that and all text I see on the web use Times New Roman 16p.

The big problem with pdf is that there are no good user configurable
viewers or unpackers or rewriting tools. For searching information in your
computer you need a special program if pdf:s are to be included in the
search. For txt and html you only need a good file manager or a grep
function.

There are alternatives, like mht which is available on more than one
browser, zipping up web sites is also a good way to handle information.

I wish we had browsers which could unzip and read zipped web pages
directly, that would be a very open and versatile way of solving the
problem.
 
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