Many times, I receive a form from a client that can be filled out with Adobe Acrobat. Sometimes there is no field for date or some particular field was forgotten. When I try and edit the form, or add text for a date - I get the following error window: "This form cannot be edited in Adobe Acrobat DC. Please use Adobe LiveCycle Designer to edit this form." I have the Creative Cloud style Adobe suite. There is no LiveCycle Designer in that suite. Info: Designer ES4 comprehensive design tool | Adobe LiveCycle Enterprise Suite 4
What exactly is going on? Am I really not able to add a string of text to a form with Acrobat Pro? - or has this document been built with a legacy product / and that is the real problem?
Any ideas or help to make Acrobat a useful tool would be wonderful, otherwise - I'll just go back to printing these forms and sending them in the mail. Thanks.
Of course, you should still be able to fill in any existing form fields, save the file, etc., but you can't actually edit the document itself or the fields in it.
Not entirely true. I added my signature to a LiveCycle document using the "Fill and Sign" feature. The frustrating part is that I couldn't add a date next to the signature I just inserted.
Solution: Use the "Print" function to print document as a PDF file. This will convert the document to a pdf format that you can edit.
A digital signature automatically contains the date and time it was signed.
Printing the file to a PDF is a very bad idea. You're basically destroying the entire underlying structure of the file and there's no way it will be accepted when you submit it.
I think you might be referring to a digital time stamp that is added to the doc as metadata. Or I must be using a different version of "Fill and Sign". The only option available was to add a "psuedo" signature which was basically an image of a signature generated by Acrobat DC. There was no option to insert a visible date.
I'm my case I didn't need to maintain the underlying structure or meta data. I would bet that there a many others that have found themselves in the same situation as myself. I just needed to overlay a string of text where a field was missing. The alternative was to print the document to paper, fill out the rest with a pen and then scan it back to electronic form.
Just jumping in here and am having the same problem. I have a subscription to Adobe CC and have always used Acrobat Pro to add my signature to a document along with the date. In this case, I've downloaded a W9 form from the IRS and have successfully added my previously saved signature but can't 'fill in' the date next to my signature. I have really enjoyed filling out PDF's previously using Acrobat Pro in lieu of printing and then all of a sudden I'm receive the same error message as documented above.
Previously this has been a real time saver and very convenient. This morning, I've spent too long trying to do something that used to be very simple.
Any insights into the what indeed is going on would be helpful.
To emphasise: do NOT do this if you have to submit the firms electronically. Fine if you send paper. The IRS will reject or misread a file printed to PDF. It might also reject a form edited in LiveCycle Designer. Pricessing is completely automatic and redoing the form you might as well send them a laundry bill for all the sense it will make. This could have serious consequences.
This is quite pathetic, I've just wasted 45 minutes of my life trying to add a date next to a signature. And it wouldn't even let me print because I don't have a printer connected. This is the only reason I use Acrobat, and I'm paying for pro. Adobe -- you charge way too much for software that consistently gets worse. My primary app has been Fireworks, which now you've discontinued and now I can't open hundreds of projects that I've done over the years. Thanks for nothing Adobe -- I hope you're put out of business soon... my dog writes better software than this...
In cases where we have seen this, government forms, they are forms that MUST be signed and submitted on paper. No LiveCycle form can require editing (rather than filling), because editing is not usually possible.
If using the digitally sign feature of Acrobat/Reader, there is a special digital certificate that is attached to the PDF that includes a lot of information as when the PDF form was signed and information to tell if the form has been changed and the ability to "roll back" the form to a state prior to the signature being applied.
Fill and sign is a different product for applying a signature to the PDF.
Use of the digital certificate can be used to validate legal or business forms internationally and comply the legal signature standards that have been internationally agree upon. "Fill and sign" has no such standing or ability, so any formed signed by the "Fill and Sign" option should not be recognized as legally binding in an U.S. court or the courts in many other countries. You might find a court that accepts the "Fill and Sign" but that ruling can easily be overturned because of its lack of conformity to international standards and the standard in the U.S. established by the UCC.
When this happens I usually type the date in Photoshop/Illustrator and save out as transparent PNG. Then I upload it as a signature in Adobe Acrobat and paste it in. You can also hand-draw the date in the Signature popup.
