Catalyst Creative Posted March 14 Posted March 14 Context: I receive PDF files from the Canadian government and other institutions that embed fillable fields into their forms. As intended, I fill out the forms in Apple Preview and save the file with my content in place. When attempting to place these files into an Affinity Publisher document to print them all at once in one file, all the filled-in content is stripped out (using the File / Place feature or drag-and-drop onto the page). Desired outcome: retain the embedded content stored in fillable PDFs on place and/or create a filter option for placement (as supported in Adobe Creative Cloud). Importance: This is a key limitation in our modern world of interactive forms. If the integrity of filled-out PDFs cannot be ensured, the Affinity Publisher becomes a less relevant tool for layout and design in the future. Quote
Oufti Posted March 14 Posted March 14 Have you tried to fill the forms with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader instead of Apple Preview? Quote Affinity Suite 2.5 – Monterey 12.7.5 – MacBookPro 14" 2021 M1 Pro 16Go/1To I apologise for any approximations in my English. It is not my mother tongue.
Catalyst Creative Posted March 14 Author Posted March 14 3 minutes ago, Oufti said: Have you tried to fill the forms with the free Adobe Acrobat Reader instead of Apple Preview? Hahaha! No, but I can't see how Serif would want to encourage their customers to use Adobe products! If Apple Preview has an issue with Publisher, then it gives Adobe a competitive advantage to keep people in their ecosystem. Quote
Oufti Posted March 14 Posted March 14 That's not the point. Affinity has nothing to do with that. As its name implies, Preview is to view PDF but it's well known it sometimes fail with PDF forms – depending on their internal structure –, as do most of the non-Adobe viewers. (At least it has been like that for a very long time and it was still true some years ago when I tested extensively for the last time.) That's why I think it's worth to try… https://discussions.apple.com/thread/254964593 https://eclecticlight.co/2019/06/18/pdf-without-adobe-23-the-nightmare-of-forms/ Quote Affinity Suite 2.5 – Monterey 12.7.5 – MacBookPro 14" 2021 M1 Pro 16Go/1To I apologise for any approximations in my English. It is not my mother tongue.
Oufti Posted March 14 Posted March 14 Another solution would be to print to PDF from Preview instead of saving them. So they won't be forms anymore and should behave appropriately when placed in Affinity. Quote Affinity Suite 2.5 – Monterey 12.7.5 – MacBookPro 14" 2021 M1 Pro 16Go/1To I apologise for any approximations in my English. It is not my mother tongue.
Catalyst Creative Posted March 14 Author Posted March 14 8 minutes ago, Oufti said: Another solution would be to print to PDF from Preview instead of saving them. So they won't be forms anymore and should behave appropriately when placed in Affinity. Omgosh!! You're a genius! That totally worked. Thank you for your suggestion! -d Oufti 1 Quote
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