Libre Office trying to save as PDF

Question

I'm using LibreOffice and have opened a PDF in Draw. It is a form for customers to fill in, and I want them to be able to fill in via there PDF reader, then save and send back to me. However when I save and open in Adobe reader 7 or any version, it allows me to fill in but says will not save!

What I'm doing is adding editable text fields to the form and then exporting as PDF, can anyone tell me how I make it so the user can save when it's filled in?

Answer 1

From what I have read, this "right" needs to be extended by Adobe. If you read the entire thread in the Scribus forums it implies that it involves keys signed by Adobe so couldn't be enabled by non-Adobe creators. Personally when I need to do this (no help to you since you are trying to distribute) I "Print" the completed form to PDFCreator.

Answer 2

Adobe Acrobat (Standard and Pro) can change PDF forms to enable Adobe Acrobat Reader users to 'fill+save' form data (instead of the standard 'fill+print').

It is a special option available when saving the PDF saying "Save PDF with extended Reader functions" (or similar... I'm translating this back from German into English).

This cannot be achieved with any non-Adobe PDF creating software (unless this has licensed that function from Adobe). It certainly cannot be achieved with LibreOffice.

The technical reason for this is that Adobe uses a digital signature to protect this function, and that you'll have to agree to not reverse engineer the key when you accept the Adobe EULA.

Acrobat Reader has that key compiled into its binary. If it checked and verified the key, it will change the message displayed to the user indicating that the form data of this document can be saved (it will also change its behavior and indeed save the data).

On the other hand, it looks like most non-Adobe PDF readers will be able to save the formdata, and read it correctly from the saved file. (Adobe Reader however will refuse to read the data, because the saved PDFs lack the required signature!)

Not sure if these infos will help you, but they reflect the real life... :-(