Issues encountered while importing an existing PDF form

created by Randy Swineford on Aug 26, 2012 9:46 PM, last modified by Josh_Corey on Jan 29, 2014 7:56 PM

Version 6

FormsCentral now provides you the option to import an existing PDF form into the service. Here are some important things to know:

FormsCentral does not support the importing most of PDF forms created using the LiveCycle Designer desktop application or LiveCycle servers, some LiveCycle Designer forms are now supported (static XFA), but "dynamic XFA based PDF forms are not supported. You can identify such a form by opening it in Reader/Acrobat, going to the File menu -> Properties and looking at the PDF Producer name on the Description tab. It will say LiveCycle Designer (although this does not tell you if the form is static or dynamic).
The PDF form you import must have existing fillable form fields placed on it using a tool like Adobe Acrobat or the latest version of Adobe InDesign (or any other competitive form authoring tool). This FAQ explains in more detail.
If your PDF form is encrypted with a password or copy protected you must remove the password or copy protection from the file before importing.
Once you import the PDF form you cannot edit it except for placing the Submit button on the first or last page of the form.
You can only distribute the form as a PDF file. We do not provide a Web Form option for imported PDF forms.
You can not import a PDF form created using FormsCentral. You should distribute a PDF form created using FormsCentral using the Distribute tab within the form file.

Additionally in some cases we can successfully import the PDF form but there are certain features within the PDF form that we will not support:

Rich text fields - If rich text is typed into a form field by a respondent it will be sent as plain text to FormsCentral (the service doesn't support rich text in text fields)
Digital signature fields - These will be ignored. Respondents can still sign the PDF form using Reader but their signature will not be submitted to the FormsCentral service.
Export values - Export values are stripped from the PDF form; You will always see the Display Value in the response table, submission receipts and email notifications.If there are JavaScripts in the PDF form that use the export values they will likely break.

The following FAQs related to LiveCycle Designer forms might be useful: