Editing existing form in PDf

[cruiser2]

I have a form in PDf saved in "My Documents".
I now want to edit it as some of the information has changed. I can open it and view the completed form.
But I cannot delete any of the entries or type new information.
Have tried different scenarios but all I seem to get is a small hand which I can move over the form.
I changed the entries last year but I have forgotten what I did.
I also have a copy of the blank form which I have scanned and I cannot fill that in.
When this is done , I will email the form which so far has not been a problem.
Am using W10 and Firefox
Many thanks

[Workingman]

Cruiser, W10 and Firefox are irrelevant.

To edit a pdf it has to be set as editable by the originator. Many online pdfs have editable form fields, you can fill them in there and then, but you cannot change the actual file. You can also do this on your computer when offline using a pdf editor.

Go try https://www.tracker-software.com/produc ... nge-editor it is free and if your form is fillable it will do the job, or there are loads of ways of editing fillable forms on the web. I have never used any, but a search should show you which are the best.

[Workingman]

Hi again,

I was going to bed when I last posted so here are a few more thoughts.

There are many programs out there to produce .pdfs, but unfortunately they are not all completely standards compliant. This means that a .pdf produced in one program might not render correctly when opened in another. Just be aware.

Another 'solution' to your problem might be to convert the pdf to a word document, a .doc or .docx, so that you can edit it in a word processor then convert it back to a pdf. However the same problem as above can happen.

Some time ago someone was asking about opening different file formats and I mentioned a good all-rounder AbleWord and it might be worth a look. It is light on resources and works like your word processor so nothing new to learn.

[Suff]

Several options here Cruiser. But what WM says is correct.

You have several ways of doing this. I have a PDF converter which will convert to Word but the end result is not very nice and requires quite a lot of work. If you go to google and search for "online pdf converter" you will see loads of free PDF converters which you upload the PDF file to and get a word document back.

If you want to scan, I use HP scanning which will allow me to scan to different formats and it does OCR for the document formats. Otherwise all you get is an image.

With Acrobat I have some solutions but the easiest is if you know someone with the full Acrobat program where you can open the document, save as word doc and work with it then save as PDF again.

Getting hold of an older version of Acrobat is not easy and it tries to disable itself again all the time. But it is possible on torrent sites.

Finally if you use something like paint.net, you can scan to picture, enter text onto the picture using the text tools then save it again as a PDF.

All the easy options I know of.

[Workingman]

Suff and I are on the same wavelength with this.

It is unfortunate but .pdf is an Adobe proprietary format and although people have been working on alternatives for years none are quite the complete package.

However, some years ago Adobe were giving away free versions of older products, one of which was Acrobat 8. I found this older version of Acrobat here: http://downloads.pcauthority.com.au/art ... ofessional but at 478MB it is massive. Reg no is: 1118-1414-1955-8737-8172-0350

It is slightly less old than the version I used for making training manuals when at work but I have to say that it has way too steep a learning curve for simple form filling.

You could try some of the things we suggested, but my first port of call would be AbleWord. It can open pdfs directly where they can be edited (if allowed) and save them back as pdfs. Or it can save them as .doc or .docx where you can play with them to your heart's content before saving a copy as a pfdf.

[Suff]

Well at least you can just save it to Word. That should work and be less onerous.

Yes the 500mb barrier is steep but worth it. I must get that one.

[Workingman]

I downloaded and installed earlier and it is working just fine.

Take note of this from the site: "If you're installing Acrobat on an x64 system then you may see an error complaining that "the file 'AdobePDF.dll' on Windows Vista CS-ROM is needed". Click "Browse" and you'll find it's not in the current folder. Go up a folder to AdobePDF, double-click AMD64, choose AdobePDF.dll, click Open > OK, and setup should now proceed to completion."

That does happen but the above instructions work.

I think there is also a way of burning an install CD from the files which gets around the above if you want to use it elsewhere. I'll have a dig about.

[cruiser2]

Thank you for your suggestions.
Will try them later and let you know what happens
Suff, Good luck with your job hunting. Our eldest son was made reduntant a couple of years ago. After several months doing agency work for several firms, has managed to geta good job with a Japanese company but working from an office in the UK.

[Suff]

Thanks cruiser.

There are irons in the fire but the urgency has gone out of the market right now. We'll see what happens. Perhaps I don't push hard enough but I've been burned before with jobs I wouldn't want to take. I can recognise them now and won't go for them...

I'll get something. In the meantime I have to get the work done in the home which has been suffering due to a lack of time.

Hope one of these solutions works for you.

[Workingman]

Ah, the risks of being freelance. Don't worry too much, something you want will come along... and probably like buses. You might have to choose which one to ride.