How do I save edited PDF forms as editable PDF templates?

Question

Level 1

7 points

How do I save edited PDF forms as editable PDF templates?

We need to download empty pdf forms, add some generic details (eg our company name and address) and then save that as a template so we can then open it and fill out through the year for different clients with their own individual data without having to fill in our own address again.

Preview cannot do this. On Tiger you can save the edited file, but it prevents it from then being editable again; in Leopard you can fill in the form with your data, save it, then open your saved file and edit it again but none of the data you added the first time has been saved.

We have to go into Windows and fire up Acrobat Reader 4.0 which has this functionality. All versions of Acrobat above v4 on both Windows and Mac were unable to do this so Preview isn't alone. It is frustrating though as we have to do this all the time - we fill out tax return forms for many different clients each year and really don't want to have to add our data manually each time.

Any suggestions? Any settings I can tweak anywhere?

C2D iMac 24", PowerBook G4, PowerMac G5 DC, iMac CD, Mac OS X (10.4.11), PowerMac Server runs OS X Tiger 10.4.11

Posted on Jul 15, 2008 5:03 PM

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Answer 1

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

Jul 15, 2008 5:14 PM in response to Basilisk

Preview is for viewing, not for authoring or editing. You'll need either Acrobat or InDesign to accomplish this particular goal.

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Answer 2

Basilisk Author

Level 1

7 points

Jul 15, 2008 5:34 PM in response to orangekay

Acrobat 9.0 no longer has this feature. Acrobat 4 did have but I cannot find a version of this for Intel Macs.

If Preview is not for editing, why has it been made possible with the Leopard release to reorder the pages within a pdf, delete pages, and add completely different pages from other pdfs?

If I am to get other software, then PDFpenPro will do what I want for just $49.95, but I would prefer to have Preview do it all for me. Normally it's a very capable app, but the lack of this functionality is keeping my colleagues using Windows and stopping them from moving to Mac completely. We do not need full Acrobat functionality so do not need to spend that kind of Adobe silly money.

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Answer 3

Basilisk Author

Level 1

7 points

Jul 15, 2008 5:34 PM in response to orangekay

Acrobat 9.0 no longer has this feature. Acrobat 4 did have but I cannot find a version of this for Intel Macs.

If Preview is not for editing, why has it been made possible with the Leopard release to reorder the pages within a pdf, delete pages, and add completely different pages from other pdfs?

If I am to get other software, then PDFpenPro will do what I want for just $49.95, but I would prefer to have Preview do it all for me. Normally it's a very capable app, but the lack of this functionality is keeping my colleagues using Windows and stopping them from moving to Mac completely. We do not need full Acrobat functionality so do not need to spend that kind of Adobe silly money.

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Answer 4

orangekay

Level 5

4,085 points

Jul 15, 2008 7:37 PM in response to Basilisk

Basilisk wrote:
If Preview is not for editing, why has it been made possible with the Leopard release to reorder the pages within a pdf, delete pages, and add completely different pages from other pdfs?

There's a huge difference between reordering existing pages and altering their content. The PDF specification is quite vast and Apple doesn't even attempt to support much of it because of the work involved.

The bottom line is that Preview doesn't do what you want it to and that's certainly not going to change anytime within the next year, so it's up to you to decide what to spend your money on. Since it seems that you are using this for business purposes I'd say it's a little silly to gripe about such a trivial investment, but again, it's up to you.

You could also hire someone to put together your templates for you.

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Answer 5

Basilisk Author

Level 1

7 points

Jul 16, 2008 4:15 AM in response to orangekay

Oh, we don't need to make any new investment at all - we just use Microsoft Windows with Adobe Acrobat v 4.0 which does exactly what we want. The company with the problem isn't ours, it's Apple! I'm sure we aren't the only people in the entire world with this same need. Problem for Apple is, it's a show stopper.

I asked those within our company what were the things they simply had to have Windows to be able to do. There were three main reasons: Swiss Tax software (being rewritten for Mac atm); Swiss bookkeeping software (ditto); and Acrobat Reader v4.0 (for the purposes described in this question).

Since the first two things are being attended to and will in due course of time have a solution, it looks like the only reason now stopping our entire business moving over to Apple Macs is this pdf handling issue.

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Answer 6

Tom Gewecke

Level 10

122,164 points

Jul 16, 2008 4:42 AM in response to Basilisk

The company with the problem isn't ours, it's Apple!

To make sure Apple knows about all the shows you think they are stopping, you can use this link:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html

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Answer 7

danTman

Level 1

15 points

Jul 16, 2008 5:13 AM in response to Basilisk

Hi There.

If you know the person who has created the form ask them to enable Usage rights in Adobe Reader and re send you the form. This can be found in the advanced menu in Acrobat Professional 8 onwards. Using the free adobe reader you can now save and edit existing form data.

If you don't know the creator. You could simple download the trail version of Acrobat professional from Adobe's website. Re-create the form, remember to enable usage rights before saving and you have a fully editable savable form on your mac using acrobat reader. No investment needed other that a small amount of time.

Incidentally it is not a problem I believe Apple will be able to fix as Adobe will not licence its PDF form technology. If it did few people would buy Acrobat

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Answer 8

Basilisk Author

Level 1

7 points

Jul 16, 2008 5:38 AM in response to danTman

If it isn't licenced, how come small companies like this one have an app that does exactly what loads of people want, without having all the heavy duty features of Acrobat?
http://www.smileonmymac.com/PDFpen/compare.html

I find Preview a lot more reliable than Adobe's own Reader product, which was responsible for many crashes on our Windows PCs. It just doesn't have proper functionality as in it is only doing half the job. I hate leaving jobs half done.

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