1 Reply Latest reply: Aug 5, 2014 2:08 PM by jod-zeee RSS

    How can I incorporate an overlay with fields into a PDF file?

    JoshKornOttawa

      Once a week, I produce a timesheet. It's a PDF document generated by a third-party time-recording app, and it has room for hand-filling in signatures/dates/names, etc - 7 fields all told.

       

      What I want to do is build a separate document containing an equivalent block of 7 PDF-fillable fields such that:

      1. I can overlay the PDF-fillable fields on the space for hand-filling fields on the timesheet;
      2. I can send the combined PDF file to another person in order to collect their name and (ink) signature.
      3. I can then fill in my own (ink) signature, etc.
      4. I can do the same thing week in, week out with no fiddling of fields, etc.

       

      I got tantalizingly close (I have Windows Acrobat X Pro). I built the PDF-fillable form as a separate PDF, and merged it into a sample timesheet as a Background (and I also tried using a Watermark). However:

       

      • some of the seven PDF-fillable fields simply vanish;
      • one of the remaining fields seems to have picked up a name and formatting from another deleted field (is there some kind of uncleared cache in play?);
      • all the remaining fields were marked as Read-Only.

       

      Update:

       

      FWIW, I got it to work by reversing the files - i.e. by using the timesheet itself as the background.

       

      When I add the Background (regardless of which is the main document), I get a series of warnings indicating that fields in the Background bearing the same name as those in the main document will get lost, but from what I can tell, fields in the same location as those on the main document also get lost.

       

      When I use the template as the main document, things fall into place and the scheme works.

      However, the situation seems like a fairly routine one that should be easier to solve. Ideally, I'd like to build a layer on top of the timesheet form and save that layer as an overlay.

       

      TIA

      Josh