Question PDF file question

[tinpanalley]

Question about pdf files...A PDF was created by a government agency for a visa application and filled out and received by our lawyers. When we tried printing at Staples, it printed with none of the fields filled in. What causes this? It's important for us to know where the issue is.

 

[EXCellR8]

restrictions set by the document author may not allow sensitive info to be printed.

 

[mikeymikec]

I would have thought that a fully-fledged PDF reader program will have a document properties UI that tells you how the document has been locked down.

When you tried to print the info, did the filled-in fields show up on the screen? Which application were you using?

 

[Steltek]

Question about pdf files...A PDF was created by a government agency for a visa application and filled out and received by our lawyers. When we tried printing at Staples, it printed with none of the fields filled in. What causes this? It's important for us to know where the issue is.

Save the form from the download link and load it into Adobe Acrobat Reader, not a web browser window. Hit the Menu button at the upper left in Acrobat Reader, then go down the menu to the "Protection" section and select the "Security Properties" option. This will tell you what you can and cannot do with the form based upon the current digital rights management settings applied by the agency.

The PDF plugins that most web browsers utilize are of limited utility and may not include support for the form DRM restrictions applied to the PDF. As a result, you want to fill the form out in Reader rather than a browser window.

I used to run into this frequently back when I was designing my own PDF forms and reusing SSA's forms for my own purposes at work back before I retired from there (government bureaucracy is the worst).

Do you have a web link to the form that you are trying to complete? If filling it out in Acrobat Reader doesn't allow you to print the data, depending upon the restrictions set I might be able to remove the DRM usage restrictions from the form for you.

 

[tinpanalley]

I would have thought that a fully-fledged PDF reader program will have a document properties UI that tells you how the document has been locked down.

When you tried to print the info, did the filled-in fields show up on the screen? Which application were you using?

Here's what shows up in Acrobat.
We were trying to look at it at Staples on the software on their photocopier/printer terminal display.

 

[tinpanalley]

Do you have a web link to the form that you are trying to complete?

So, as mentioned to the other user, here's the security properties.
We were trying to print from the tablet/display attached to the printer/photocopier at Staples. The screen showed the fields filled but wouldn't print them filled. What I did at Staples was jump on one of their computers and print the file to PDF to make a flattened one. That then printed.

 

[mikeymikec]

I don't know about PDF permissions to advise further. I only wonder if the PDF reader at Staples was at fault.

 

[Steltek]

So, as mentioned to the other user, here's the security properties.
We were trying to print from the tablet/display attached to the printer/photocopier at Staples. The screen showed the fields filled but wouldn't print them filled. What I did at Staples was jump on one of their computers and print the file to PDF to make a flattened one. That then printed.

It should work, based upon that. That form actually only has very limited digital rights assigned to it. At one point, Adobe even used to charge vendors for allowing the ability to save filled out PDF forms from Acrobat Reader (it used to cost the IRS a pretty penny -- I don't know if that is still the case or not as I don't pay attention to it anymore since I retired).

More than likely, it is a problem with how the form was being printed. If a web browser was involved, all bets are off.

The fact that you can print it to a flattened PDF supports this as, technically, a PDF file with printing restrictions applied usually can't be "printed" to a flattened form using PDF print creation software from major vendors to avoid PDF DRM. The reason for this is because the PDF printer creation software from major vendors themselves support the same PDF digital rights management API that Acrobat itself does to prevent specifically that DRM "end around" loophole.

There are a few exceptions, mainly older 3rd party PDF software printers that don't do it (i.e. for instance, I know old versions of CutePDF Writer don't support the Adobe security model -- I actually have such a version installed on my old machine). But all the major ones from Microsoft, Nitro, Foxit, and, of course Adobe, etc do tend to support it.

 

[tinpanalley]

So, once printed to PDF, Staples' photocopier's proprietary tablet/software was then able to print. So, I guess what happened here is that the document was made fine but that tablet and its software (whoever they're manufactured by) have some third party PDF legibility that isn't as thorough as an Adobe authorised option.

This isn't the one we used here but the setup is identical. So whoever makes that black device is what we used: