Emailing a completed form

[Dekade]

I'm still on a fast track for learning forms in PDF-XChange Editor Plus so here's another inquire - presented in scenario fashion:

Three people are involved in the following scenario - Sender person X, Recipient person A, and Reviewer person Z;

'Sender person X' emails a form to 'Recipient person A' to fill out and digitally sign. After 'Recipient person A' completes the form they email it to 'Reviewer person Z'. How is the completed form able to be kept from 'Sender person Z' making changes to 'Recipient person A's' entries? Additionally, are text fields containing long answers (that make the field become scroll-able) still able to be scrolled through once the form has been field out and sent to 'Reviewer person Z'? All in all, does 'Recipient person A' have to do something to the form before they return email the form to 'Sender person Z' to put the form into a final non-editable state????

I tried to find clarification for the above via the manual but didn't have any luck. Possibly overlooked it somewhere.

Thanks,
Dekade

[Dekade]

In hopes of not being pushy and over anxious - has anyone understood my original post and come up with some answers? I have tried to send pdf's back and forth to myself - but - I can't figure out how to keep fields from being edited by a third party once the form leaves the hands of the person who filled in the form.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello Dekade,
Sorry for the delayed response, we usually only have full coverage during the work week, as such over weekends not all forum posts can be answered immediately, and often wait slightly longer than normal. As such mondays are our busiest days and the hardest to catch up during.
Assuming that Sender X has supplies a form field for Recipient A to sign, or Recipient A knows how to sign a document without a signature field, then the doucment will be locked by the signature and thus not allow most edits (the Editor has a built in feature to detect this and prevents most editing features from being used in these cases). Should any edits happen between Recipient A and Reviewer Z, validating the signature will show you a statement in the signatures pane that "There have been subsequent changes to the document" so you will know if any edits have happened between then and now.
As for scrolling, so long as Sender X has sent the forms with the Scroll option set to yes for all text fields (this is the default) then the text will still be scrollable during review. Do note however that upon printing the document, anything in the scrollable text box beyond what is visible may be lost.

[Dekade]

Hello Dekade,
Sorry for the delayed response ...

Daniel - no need to apologize. I did not expect a reply last night. However, when I signed in this morning and did not see anything I was inspired to follow up impatiently.

Okay, so, it appears as though the signature locks everything and nothing can be changed at that point. I will study some things further and practice some more. I will most likely be back to this thread after experimenting.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

I wouldn't go so far as to say it locks everything, just that the editor prevents most editing features. and the signature is used as a validation method to ensure that form fields have not been tampered with. The form fields in some cases can still be edited, however attempting to validate the signature will inform you it has been tampered.

[Dekade]

Before seeing your reply

I wouldn't go so far as to say it locks everything,...

I was working on getting a sample configuration in motion to see the results. You are correct. All the fields are still editable. I don't prefer that scenario. What suggestions do you have to make a signed document uneditable DESPITE validated signatures? I would really like to make it so the fields are not editable AFTER a signature is deployed. This allows for viewing only. I will not have a desire to export chosen data, from a completed form, (at this point in time anyway).

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi again Dekade,
While the default does not allow this, I managed to forget there is a dropdown menu which would directly affect this.
This is something that Recipient A would need to be aware of when signing the document, however it would allow the signature to prevent editing of form fields:

The alternative is to set the form field to force the other fields into read only mode:

[Dekade]

Thanks Daniel, I will work with that information and see where it leads me. I appreciate your patience. I am focused toward getting this program to fulfill my needs and am greatly looking forward to the end results. Despite growing pains - I really enjoy the versatility of the program.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

[Dekade]

I'm getting real close here to solving a lot of things - but, another question lingers. (everyone's excited - right? ) :

This specific 'form' question applies to the scrolling of a field but can also tie in with signatures.

I have not yet applied "Mark as Read Only" to the signature field as shown to me by Daniel. However, I have tried the following - I have selected "No Changes Allowed' in the Permissions field when signing a form. When I emailed that form and then opened the form using Adobe Reader I am not able to scroll through any filled in text fields. The nice feature was that none of the fields could be entered or edited. Nice.

If I use PDFXChange to open the file I do have the functionality to scroll through any filled in text fields. Real Nice. However, not every computer will have PDFXChange as it's reader. Therefore, versatility amongst readers is what I am seeking an answer for relative to scrollable filled in text fields.

So - is there any way to program/instruct PDFXChange to make filled fields scrollable when opened by Adobe and other readers?

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello Dekade,

I am sorry to say that we have no control over how adobe interprets a scrollable field while the document is locked. We ensure we've adhere as closely to the PDF spec as is possible, and thus our output should be correctly interpreted by all other handlers. Even the competition. Have you tried filling and signing the PDF in adobe or another alternative, to see if this happens when any other program sets the field as scrollable? If so, and the issue persists, this would be one of those rare cases where I must suggest you tell them that there is a bug in their program preventing a scrollable field from being correctly viewed...

Alternatively, feel free to inform all of your clients that form filling is a completely free feature of our PDF-XChange Editor and can be done without a license at all!

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Also, I wanted to mention, in response to both this thread about forms, and a user suggestion we received yesterday, I have published an updated version of our form filling article.
It is currently undergoing the finishing touches and editing, so there may be a typo here and a formatting issue there, however, ignoring those, it does very nicely outline how each form function works.
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/knowle ... -PDF-forms

[Dekade]

Thanks Daniel,

I will follow through on your last advice tidbits as well as read the new instructional.

It is unusual to find this level of cooperation, interaction, and desire to succeed - as exhibited by Tracker - within the support and business world. Kudos.

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

[Dekade]

There is redundancy to the following, relative to this thread, but I'm going to try anyway.

I'm still trying to figure out how I can make this form workable in Adobe Acrobat Reader. IF I fill out the form via Acrobat Reader (and then save it to disk via Acrobat Reader) I am able to scroll the scrollable text field upon reopening it again in Acrobat. If I fill out the field in PDFXChange, and I do NOT sign the form, and I then open it in Acrobat - the field is not scrollable. Does that add up and make sense? Why would it be acting that way?

EDIT #1 - I have made significant progress in solving all of this. I will be back in a few minutes to further elaborate.

EDIT #3 - OKAY . . . I think I've got it!!! I have created a form in PDFXChange. The signature field properties for "Signed" are [When Signed - Mark as Read Only]. Then I enter a signature via the PDFXChange user interface. During the signing I select 'No Changes Allowed' in the 'Permissions' field. The file is now scrollable and Read Only in Acrobat Reader DC. But, maybe all this has already been answered throughout this thread. Anyway - I have condensed the results. Nice guy huh?

Anyway - if I need to tweak my end results any further then I will do so in a third edit. For now - many thanks to the forum and the very nice/patient Tracker staff. Don't get too comfortable though, I might be back . . .

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Glad to hear it is all working as you want it to now Dekade,
Have a great day!