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Am I the only one who hates these fake PDFs? (eclecticlight.co)

submitted 1 year ago by bazmatazable@reddthat.com to c/foss

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I was forced to fill out an XFA form (that was pretending to be a PDF) from the Canadian government and the experience left me feeling completely subjugated. The lengths that Adobe go to to make sure that you have the most frustrating experience possible is unbelieveable. Searching for alternatives or help leads you to either: be forced to buy their premium software (or a licensed equivalent) or subscribe for Adobe's online tools. Why is this propriety format allowed in government forms? What is so fantastic/irreplaceable about this format?

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[–] DarkSirrush@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not a government form, but I had to convert one of the forms in my workplaces hiring package so that new hires could even open it.

Fortunately easy to do it you have Adobe installed, but it does require it for the initial conversion.

[–] bazmatazable@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Where you able to convert the form into an open format and also preserve all the original functionality? If this is true then there is absolutely no excuse for these forms not being offered in alternative formats. There are some tools that will let you 'flatten' an XFA form to a static PDF but this destroys all the dynamic parts of the original.

[–] DarkSirrush@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 year ago

No, it got rid of all the dynamic parts. For my purposes they weren't needed, as it was mostly for a poorly implemented embedded print button, and locking fields to certain data types.

Completely pointless, because most people here literally just print the pdf and fill it by hand still.