Preview Error: "The document “” could not be saved. "

I tried to look up what behavior Adobe requires related to password security on their PDF docs, but the topic is more complex than I expected. 

< https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/securing-pdfs-passwords.html >

Rather than try to interpret the Adobe description, I downloaded their latest free PDF viewer, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC version 2020.009.20067. Reader provided the behavior I expected when editing ssa-44-ext.pdf in that I could enter text in form fields and save a copy of the PDF containing the text I had entered in the fields. This is the behavior Apple’s Preview app should reproduce rather than generate a “document could not be saved” error.

The test above provides another workaround (i.e. use Adobe Acrobat DC instead of Preview) in addition to John Galt’s “Print to PDF” approach. If you don’t expect to change the PDF again, the Print to PDF approach may better meet your needs. If you expect you may need to change the PDF later, Reader will let you save a copy of the file with all of your field entries intact.

In summary, I still think this issue is a bug in the Preview app that should be fixed to work like Reader DC.

I wonder if the creators of the SSA document realized how this setting would affect the end-user? I’ve also seen this issue in financial statements from one of my investment companies. I usually annotate such PDFs to include notes and the date I reconciled the statement, only to be unable to save a local copy with my edits - unless I print-to-PDF.

I have no objection to allowing a document-creator to protect their document, but I see no benefit to preventing a user from creating an editable local copy. I think this behavior of Preview should be changed.

Thanks,

Will

Thank you for the suggestion, Wayne, but your issue seems much more extensive than what I experienced. I'm not sure what would produce the behavior you saw except perhaps scrambled permissions on many files. I think it was the Disk Utility app that had a way to "fix permissions" on all files, but I don't see that as a separate command in Catalina. I'm not sure if the "First Aid" tab includes the permission fix, but it may be worth a try.

Will

Thank you, John. I agree with your workaround and used it to save my “final” copy. Then I found an error and had to type all of my edits into the original PDF again. I may be misunderstanding you, but I don’t see how saving an editable separate copy of a form makes the original any more secure or unalterable. In this case, it just made more work for the end-user. Even if this behavior is working as intended, I think it it is confusing, provides no benefit to either developer or user, and should be changed.

I don’t agree. The Preview application is preventing the saving of a separate document with my edits. Preview could be changed to eliminate this check, allow my copy to be saved, and keep the original unaltered.

Thanks, Wayne T. There are indeed many tools to manipulate PDFs for MacOS. Hopefully, Apple will get around to fixing their a Preview app soon. Good luck with your other issue. That’s an odd one.

Will