Just a shot in the dark that anyone here might have some insight.
The federal tax form PDFs are saveable–I can enter the data, and save the thing to my own computer.
The Indiana state tax form PDFs, however, are not saveable. You must print copies for your own records–no electronic storage allowed.
Anyone know why they would choose to do things this way?
Is the intention of the form to submit it electronically or is it just for filling out, printing, and snail-mailing?
Filling out, printing and snail mailing.
Are you trying to save it using Reader, or using Acrobat itself?
If you’re using Reader, then saving form data is a feature they have to specifically enable. Not all software that creates PDFs support that feature. Even if they have it, they may have overlooked it.
If you’re using Acrobat, then they’d have to specifically protect the file to prevent you from saving it that way.
Using Reader.
Probably not worth actually trying to email someone at the Department of Revenue but… who knows… maybe I’ll try it.
Why don’t you just install a PDF print driver and save it as a PDF by “printing” to a PDF file? If you are running OS X it’s built in to the operating system. If you have Windows you have to install one.
The ability to save forms using Reader has to be enabled by the creator. The creator is limited by license to 500 uses of that form unless they pay tens (or hundreds) of thousands to Adobe for their LiveCycle server. The IRS has paid for that; I suspect Indiana has not.
That would explain it.
We were going to bid on a job to do paper forms -> fillable PDFs and they wanted to be able to do that - If I recall correctly the number depended on how many users you had and would have been in the hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for a client that size (moderately sized online brokerage).
I’m sure the IRS got a flat rate and government discount, but it still wouldn’t surprise me if it cost multi-millions.
There are companies that buy LiveCycle and then resell it as a forms hosting service for $x/page/year.
My state does that too. This is easy enough to save. I use Cute PDF that creates a PDF document that I save. You could also print to file and retrieve that later, but the PDF is easiest.
How do you know what software the Indiana and US federal governments use to create their PDF forms? PDF is an open format so institutions aren’t limited to Adobe’s offerings and payment schemes.
I ran into this same problem with the North Carolina tax forms, until I found out the the free Foxit PDF reader not only lets you save the filled-out forms, it also lets you reopen what you saved and update the fields as needed.
I was under the impression that, while the basic PDF was open, Adobe used a proprietary form system. If that’s not the case, then I do have an alternate theory: most state governments seem to be behind on computer technology. And even if they know about new stuff, there seems to be a shortage of IT professionals working in many state governments, and the average PC user probably still associates PDF with Adobe, and might not realize there were other options.
Plus, if I understand correctly, most large organizations will not go open source due to support issues. So it’s either Adobe or a competitor who probably isn’t selling things that much cheaper.
It says so in the form properties.
They are if they want the forms to be saveable in Adobe reader - which is what most people have installed. Adobe uses some sort of cryptographic signing system that only allows forms created in their products to be saved.
As stated above using another PDF client application like Foxit lets you save, but then you run into the problem of needing to install software on people’s machines.
Most people who want to avoid the Livecycle cost simple collect the data on a web form and populate the PDF before the client gets it, instead.
Oh, wonderful… I tested this myself and you’re right—if I create a PDF form in LaTeX, I can fill and save it just fine in any PDF viewer except for Adobe Reader. Way to go, Adobe, for crippling your own software. :mad: