What could prevent a PDF from being populated with e-form data?

[evan_venable]

I have e-form versions of some PDF's that, on submission, will populate the PDF which is then sent to an ECM repository. I am having an issue where one of the PDF's I am using will not fill with the data from the e-form. I have already made sure all fields are set to visible and security is off, so I'm out of ideas for the moment. Are there any other settings I should be looking at? This is a state tax form by the way, Louisiana L-4 to be specific.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

Government forms are often XFA forms (created in LiveCycle Designer). If your data merging solution only works with AcroForms, that could be the reason why it's not working with this particular form. You can tell by looking at the document information (Ctrl-D or Cmd-D, then go to the "Description" tab.

[evan_venable]

Here's the info, is there any way to get this form to populate?

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

This is not an XFA form, so that's not the problem. How exactly are you merging your data into the form?

[evan_venable]

I am using IBM Forms Experience Builder to develop the e-forms, which allows you to upload a PDF to the application, and then the e-forms fields can be mapped to the PDF's fillable fields through a nice little service configuration UI. And then you simply call that service however you wish, whether it be a button click or some other event.

[Karl Heinz Kremer]

You will have to talk to the makers of that tool to find out why your form is not working correctly. Only they know what's going on internally to the tool.

[evan_venable]

I have, and they said they would investigate. I was going to add to my last comment that I am doing this will at least 30 other e-forms successfully, so I know the issue is specific to this particular PDF.

[Karl Heinz Kremer · Accepted solution]

Because this problem occurs in a non-Adobe solution, it's outside of the scope of this forum. We don't know how they merge data into the PDF form, and chances are that nobody here has access to this solution to actually run some tests.

[evan_venable]

Understood, thank you for your time!