Annotations not accessible in form made in LiveCycle, saved as Reader enabled

[tanyak11]

Hello

Firstly, sorry for posting this question but I am really am stumped.  I have spent the last several days searching across these forums, but nothing listed has worked.

Background: 

I created a PDF fillable, expandable field, signature enabled form using LiveCycle Designer ES8.2.

Document Security Settings:  Printing, Content copying, page extraction, commenting, filling of forms, signing - Allowed.

                                                Changing of document, Document assembly, creating of template pages - Not Allowed.

I then opened this in Adobe Acrobat XI Pro and saved as Reader Extended PDF, Enable more tools (includes form fill-in and save)

When saving the message reads: following features will be available - save form data and digitally sign. 

Security permissions do not allow commenting; once reader enabled editing document content, or inserting and deleting pages will also be restricted.

Issue: 

I am able to access Comments and annotations when in Adobe Acrobat IX Pro, however these options are greyed out when I save the document in Adobe Reader XI.

This form will be used across our organisation (~350 staff), most of whom only have Reader.  Without comments and annotations, we are unable to insert hyperlinks and attach files which is a massive drawback and limits our potential to go paperless and provides a level of frustration when we are used to forms and the ability to attach files.

I have tried enabling annotations and comments in the toolbar menu in the Pro version before saving to Reader, but it makes no difference.

When I saved the original LiveCycler form I tried it with permissions, and no permissions - makes no difference in the end.

If i create a form from Acrobat XI Pro to Reader Extended, I can access annotations and comments; however this version of the form does not allow for expandable fields. 

I have sent the same form to colleagues, some have just Reader, others have Pro, and no one can access annotations.

Thanking you in advance for any guidance (and hopefully solutions!) you may be able to provide.

Tanya

[ulibaehr]

It is simply either / or in Acrobat: Either you chose the saving-form data-permission or you chose the annotate-permission. They do not allow you to have both - unless you reader extensions. (Annotations would be impossible in dynamic forms anyways. I suspect your form being dynamic, as it contains an expandable field.)

[jeanette614]

What he is trying to explain is: if you want annotations to be allowed, then you must save your form as a "Adobe Static PDF form"  in LiveCycle and then enable it in Accrobat pro or reader extensions. Once you do, then the dynamic properties of the form will no longer work, like buttons or subforms opening and closing. It basically becomes just like a form that you created in Word and converted it to a PDF.   The first image below is a dynamic PDF with the button functioning and the new section opening onclick. But no comments are allowed on this type of PDF, The 2nd PDF below is saved as a "Static PDF" and you can see that I was able to use the annotations markup but my button wouldn't function to open the new section. It's an either or situation I'm afraid. I got around this problem by saving the document once as a dynamic so that it functioned the way I designed it and a second copy as a Static PDF. This way my fellow employees had the ability to make comments and suggestions, apply sticky notes, underline text, cross out text, attach other documents and even insert recorded audio for meeting notes and such if they were required. There is no reason that you can't find a way to make these forms serve your purpose. You just have to get creative.