Very good point(s).
Just for more reference:
We use such forms heavily in-house, sometimes with a multi-stage
approach.
Example: the employee fills out his details, etc., and signs that part.
The fields he had to fill are now locked (but saved, ofcourse ;-)). That
PDF is now sent to his or her boss, who fills out the organisational
details, and signs that part. Finally the PDF goes to HR or whoever who
gives the final signature. Since all employees have signature cards
(chips with PKCS signatures on them) the whole process get's safe,
accountable and paper-free. In the past stuff like this required
printing, hand-signing, scanning, sending, printing-again, ... you get
the idea.
These forms are currently handcrafted using Acrobat.
I will analyse the resulting PDF streams, try to match that against the
PDF spec and what the eforms-package does.
If that lines up, I'll provide the necessary details here.
Thank you Hans and Alan! :-)
Am 2016-03-09 16:39, schrieb Alan BRASLAU:
One has to be EXTREMELY careful with these "features".
Currently, there are so-called PDF forms, but they are far from fully
functional. I suspect that the specifications are not clear and are not
respected in any case.
I will give a concrete example: The American Tax agency, IRS, provides
a large number of PDF forms that can be filled out, for they LOVE
forms.
One can use Acrobat (Reader or Pro) and one can even fill them out
using
evince. Yeah! However, whereas the forms filled-out using evince can be
saved and re-edited, printed, etc., opening these filled-out forms in
Acrobat come out blank. (Luckily I was able to provide my accountant
with *printed*, filled-in copies, both paper and PDF.)
Other examples are forms that can ONLY be read using the latest and
greatest Acrobat. The situation is problematic, and I know of at least
one government agency that has finally turned towards a web-based
reporting method as they had received multiple complaints and even
legal challenges on their Adobe/PDF only reporting method used
previously.
This can explain Hans' reticence towards reverse engineering in absence
of clear, published specifications that are indeed respected.
Alan
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