Issue with pdf when i email the form from mac the receiver see a blank form

[Bec Davis]

Hi All

I use mac, i fill out the pdf form using Adobe reader then save the document as a pdf and then when i email the document the receiver see a blank form none of the fields have text in them, please help as the subscription is no good to me without being able to email them.

[Lorina]

Hi Bec,

Sorry if this sounds obvious but just to check, are you clicking on the "Save" button or "File -> Save" after you complete the form and before emailing that form? If yes, then can you confirm the following:

1) Did you try emailing the form to yourself and see if you are able to download and view the completed template?

2) What device is the receiver using? Laptop / Desktop or ipad, etc..?

3) Lastly, can you email me a completed form to my email address so I can test it out? My email id is lorina(at)aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au

Cheers,
Lorina

[Lorina]

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for the sending me the samples and for explaining the troubleshoot steps you've tried. I downloaded and opened the fillable template you had attached in your email and I was able to view the contents on that form when I opened it from Windows. But I have a few solutions for you to troubleshoot this.

First of all, I want to confirm that the fillable pdf templates cannot be opened from iPhone, iPads or other mobile devices. I will address a solution for this later below. For the mac issue, I think there are couple of reasons on why the form may appear to be blank when opened: (1) it could be due to mac's pdf preview that opens the template or (2) the browser pdf plugin.

Here is the technical reason for this issue if you are interested to know . When opening the pdf template attached in emails, Mac computers usually use the inbuilt pdf preview to open that file. It seems that pdf preview will not be able to show the contents that are typed in from Adobe Reader (and vice versa). Apparently this is a known issue many Mac users are facing when it comes to fillable pdfs. So the solution you can try for this will be to download the attachment, store it on a location in your computer and then open that file directly from Adobe Reader instead of using the pdf preview or email preview or browser plugin. That should resolve the problem as long as the pdf is opened directly from Adobe Reader and not through the browser or pdf preview. You can find detailed steps on how to download and open the files from Adobe Reader from this link here (although the post is about downloading the template from this site, the idea is the same when downloading the email attachments too): http://aussiechildcarenetwork.com.au/fo ... 611#p18113

An Alternative Simple Solution:

Instead of explaining the above technical details to the receiver, you are better off following this alternative solution which might work better and easier in your case. Instead of emailing the original completed form template, you can either:

1) Print the template, Scan it and then email the scanned image to the parents (or)

2) Take a screenshot of the completed template, save the screenshot as a pdf or image and email that file to the parents.

The second one is like your screenshot attachment you sent in your email to me. When you do one of the above 2 solutions, the attached file can be opened from any devices including iPads or iPhones with no trouble since they are just a simple pdf or image file which can be opened from any file preview program. This is probably the best and easier solution for your issue.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you need more help.

Cheers,
Lorina.