Scenario:I’ve spent a couple of hours creating a form that perfectly navigates the user through the fields, automatically skipping and hiding fields based on their responses to others, does validity checking on a field by field basis to ensure data integrity, formats the data exactly the way my database requires it, distributed it using the wizard so I can collect the data, even from people with the free Adobe Reader, tested the final version in versions 6 through 10 and posted it to my web site. Now all I have to do is… reply to all the people who are having trouble with my form because they are using a non-Adobe tool to fill it out. Ack!
I’m not making this up. I get questions on a weekly basis from customers that are baffled by the failure of their well crafted forms to collect their data correctly only to find out that a particular recipient was using a non-Adobe tool to fill it out. To make matters worse, the recipient didn’t even know they were doing anything wrong.
Here’s the issue that IT departments need to be concerned with when deciding to deploy 3rd party tools rather than the free Adobe Reader… as the recipient of a form, you have no idea what that form should look like and no idea how it should behave.
With “lightweight alternative” PDF viewers or ones that are actually built into the operating system, unless you are exclusively using in-house forms that you design around the restrictions of the various PDF viewers, you run the risk of sending inaccurate information back to the form author. Inaccurate information leads to a loss of data, productivity, and money.
So – let’s say your forms are not as complex as the scenario I painted above. Just for argument’s sake, let’s say the form contains no scripting at all; just basic form fields. If you use a common, OS level PDF viewer, let’s call it ViewerA, to fill and save even this simple form, users of Acrobat and Reader (and at least one other 3rd party viewer that I tested) won’t be able to see the data. If you then click into the fields one by one, you can see the information entered into the field; click out of the field, it goes blank again. The form is broken… and as the recipient, you have no idea that the form you sent back to the person who requested the information can’t see your data.
Is using an Adobe Reader alternative worth the risk?
If you want an objective review of the leading PDF viewers out there, take a look at 5 Free PDF Readers Compared. You can read the whole article or just jump to the section on forms in the Review Notes where the best the author can say about the 3rd party tools is that they’re improving.
but that’s not because the third party applications did anything WRONG. They filled in the field data. What they didn’t do was also set the metadata about the field appearance, and Reader, instead of failing gracefully, just gets pissy and then displays the form in an inaccurate fashion. The form data IS there, reader choses not to display it because metadata isn’t set right, which is, to be blunt dumb.
You’re justifying Acrobat and reader lying to the user because of metadata. that’s inexcusable. When the appearance metadata is missing, and there is data in the form, that data should be displayed unless the field is specifically set to not do so.
Actually, the 3rd party application did do something wrong, they didn’t set the appearance, which is required to comply with the specification.
Or, to rephrase your second to last paragraph, is using a proprietary format which doesn’t work well in anything but Adobe’s own software worth the risk?
The problem, I think, is in your choice of proprietary technology, not in the end user’s freedom to use alternative software to view your PDF.
Many, many, many people design forms using HTML and Javascript, which work perfectly well in a wide range of browsers on a wide range of platforms, allowing users to complete the form regardless of what kind of system they’re using or their preference of software.
You want to restrict those willing to complete your form for you to using your preferred proprietary, bloated software, which may not even be *available* for the platform they’re using? That’s not a prudent decision, as far as I’m concerned, and trying to blame the end users isn’t a good solution to that bad choice.
I actually welcome the comparison to HTML in this case. Even though HTML is a standard interpreters like Webkit exist, there are HUGE differences in the way HTML is rendered in different browsers.
Well, maybe if Adobe Reader would allow users to save their filled PDF forms instead of losing all data as soon as they close it, people would show less desire for third party tools.
And don’t come tell me that you can, that the creator of the form just needs to have enabled the feature. You can’t rely on people to make the forms they force you to fill out useable any more than you can prevent them from sending you a .docx file with embedded pictures when you ask for image files.