Karl, Thank you so much. I will pursue that. And thank you for the tips on investigating issues.
Unfortunately, even thought the ultimate result of my labors is a PDF, the actual PDF generation is not really the focus of my work (it is figuring out exactly what to put in the form fields). So I just do not have the time to understand the PDF format as well as I should. I suspect many PDFBox users have similar issues. I really appreciate your help, and the wonderful PDFBox community. Thank you again. On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 9:23 AM, Karl Heinz Kremer <[email protected]> wrote: > This is a corrupt PDF file, but I doubt that the syntax problems are > causing the problems with your fax service: > > If you have access to Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can run the "Report PDF syntax > issues" preflight profile to get a list of syntax problems. There are two > types of problems in your file: One is related to the tags structure, and > you can test if that is causing any problems by just removing the tags > tree. The second type of problem is related to the /Tabs entry in the page > dictionary. This optional key can have the following values associated with > it (from the PDF spec): > > *"(Optional; PDF 1.5) A name specifying the tab order that shall be used > for annotations on the page. The possible values shall be R (row order), C > (column order), and S (structure order). See 12.5, "Annotations" for > details."* > The document does however use a "W". > > You can change this by processing your document with the pdfbox-app, using > the "WriteDecodedDoc" command to uncompress it, and then change the /W > instances to e.g. /R or /C (this will change the way you tab through > the document when filling out the form in Acrobat or Reader). Keep in > mind that when editing a PDF file, you need to use a binary editor, and you > have to make sure that the cross reference table is still valid after your > changes. > > > Karl Heinz Kremer > PDF Acrobatics Without a Net > PDF Software Development, Training and More... > > [email protected] > http://www.khkonsulting.com > > > On Fri, Mar 3, 2017 at 8:31 AM, Evan Williams <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > I work with forms that come from drug manufacturers and pharmacies. Using > > PDFBox (2.0.4), I fill them out and then display them in the browser or > fax > > them. > > > > This has been working perfectly (thank you PDFBox team!), but I have a > > mystery PDF which is causing trouble. > > > > The first sign of trouble is, various PDF renderers in browsers were > > displaying fields that had been filled in as blank (intermittently). > > Chrome's PDF viewer was one such culprit. Need Appearances was set to > true > > with this form, so I set it to False and refreshed the appearances, which > > may or may not have fixed it (if it doesn't I will do a full flatten on > > it). > > > > More seriously, the faxing service that we use chokes on this form. They > > are unable to render it even if I don't fill it out and send them the > > original PDF. They are investigating this on their end, but since this is > > the only PDF that has ever had this issue and because of its previous > > suspicious behavior, I believe that it might be corrupt in some subtle > way > > that I don't understand. PDFBox seems to have no trouble working with it, > > and it is viewable and printable in Acrobat and in third party viewers. > But > > I am uncertain. > > > > I would very much appreciate any tips you can give me on examining this > PDF > > and debugging the issue. > > > > The file is here: > > https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/25802656/Tyvaso-Revised.pdf > > > > The PDFBox community is awesome, and I am very grateful for your time. > > Thank you > > -- > > *Evan Williams* > > Sr. Software Engineer > > [email protected] > > > > *www.ZappRx.com <http://www.zapprx.com/>* > > > -- *Evan Williams* Sr. Software Engineer [email protected] *www.ZappRx.com <http://www.zapprx.com/>*
