On Monday 05 February 2024 01:25:33 PM (+01:00), jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 05/02/2024 à 13:04, Bob Williams a écrit :

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My government tax department (UK HMRC) has sent me a PDF form to complete. It is designed to be completed on screen, and then printed, but okular does not offer editing controls to complete the form. I have used okular to complete other pdf forms on this computer so I think the problem is with the form. My system is Tumbleweed + KDE. Can anyone recommend an alternative PDF viewer to try? TIA Bob can be done with Libre Office, but not very friendly

jdd

okular has a switch, button in the right area of the menu bar if i remember correctly, that enables form fields in forms that contain them. happened to me once that i couldn't find it, edited the PDF in GIMP, but later found that button. can't find a form with fields to show you a screenshot right now. -- phani.

On Mon, 5 Feb 2024 14:16:28 +0100 Simon Becherer wrote:

Am 05.02.24 um 13:31 schrieb phanisvara das:

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On Monday 05 February 2024 01:25:33 PM (+01:00), jdd@dodin.org wrote:

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Le 05/02/2024 à 13:04, Bob Williams a écrit :

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My government tax department (UK HMRC) has sent me a PDF form to complete. It is designed to be completed on screen, and then printed, but okular does not offer editing controls to complete the form. I have used okular to complete other pdf forms on this computer so I think the problem is with the form. My system is Tumbleweed + KDE. Can anyone recommend an alternative PDF viewer to try? TIA Bob can be done with Libre Office, but not very friendly

jdd

okular has a switch, button in the right area of the menu bar if i remember correctly, that enables form fields in forms that contain them. happened to me once that i couldn't find it, edited the PDF in GIMP, but

later found that button. can't find a form with fields to show you a screenshot right now.

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Here is a pdf.formular with okular

https://paste.opensuse.org/a5ba85bf13b1

on top right corner in the blue field "formulare anzeigen"

Yes, I'm familiar with that blue field and the button. It appears automatically when Okular detects that the form contains fields. So I'm sure the problem is with the form not complying with standards. Or conversely, Okular being non-compliant.

it works for this pdf. maybe other not.

if its private use, you could google an use "Master PDF Editor" (not free for comercial use as i remember)

I'll try that one. Thank you. Bob -- Bob Williams No HTML please. Plain text preferred. https://useplaintext.email/ http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

On 2024-02-05 16:09, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 05/02/2024 à 14:16, Simon Becherer a écrit :

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Here is a pdf.formular with okular

https://paste.opensuse.org/a5ba85bf13b1

on top right corner in the blue field "formulare anzeigen"

on a (test) french cerfa I get

Ce document utilise des formulaires « XFA » qui ne sont pas encore pris en charge."

This document uses "XFA" forms which are not yet supported.

however on the form used fields seems to work (but I didn't test more)

They can seem to work, but some times there is a crucial part that doesn't. The javascript code in these type of forms can actually do things, like verifying that the fields contain consistent data, or do mathematical operations to fill some other fields. On a government form, they can be used to generate dot matrixes that can be read by a laser scanner when submitting the printed form. Something else they can do with javascript is to connect with the mothership and tell them who is reading the PDF. Verify licenses and your right to read it. Or simply log your IP. There is no Linux open source PDF viewer that supports XFA forms with Javascript. The only one that did was the Linux version of Acrobat Reader, which has not been updated in many years and now simply doesn't run. So, better make sure this form is not XFA type. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.4 x86_64 at Telcontar)

On 2024-02-06 10:09, jdd@dodin.org wrote:

Le 05/02/2024 à 23:23, Carlos E. R. a écrit :

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So, better make sure this form is not XFA type.

not on my control :-(

Of course not. I mean, find out, and if it is, well... it is either windows, android, or a virtual machine with either, and acrobat reader. :-( :-/ But I mean, if it is XFA, do not try to do it in Linux. At least, compare the same form (writing on it) on both Linux and Windows, find out what differences are there, then act. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 15.4 x86_64 at Telcontar)

Le 05/02/2024 à 16:49, Rainer Klier a écrit :

hi, Am 05.02.24 um 13:04 schrieb Bob Williams:

It is designed to be completed on screen, and then printed,

all you need is a web browser.

oh, right!! I did know that the online version worked, but never thought of opening the pdf file with firefox! thanks, good info! jdd -- https://artdagio.fr

On 2024-02-06 19:34, Bob Williams wrote:

Many thanks to all who replied. I have now discovered that HMRC PDFs with forms will only work with Adobe Acrobat Reader on Windows or Mac.

I'll print it out and fill it in by hand.

Did you try masterpdfeditor? Especially masterpdfeditor4 and not 5. Not open source but it does work with XFA pdf forms. $ pdfinfo secret.pdf | grep -e Form -e JavaScript Form: XFA JavaScript: yes -- /bengan

On 2/6/24 13:05, Dave Howorth wrote:

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Many thanks to all who replied. I have now discovered that HMRC PDFs with forms will only work with Adobe Acrobat Reader on Windows or Mac. IIRC that violates HMG's open government promises. I'd suggest writing a complaint to your MP and copy HMRC. Your choice of OS shouldn't block your access.

I totally agree.  IIRC Adobe has patent rights to the technology, and they stopped supporting Linux many years ago.  I've run into the issue of signing PDF's with SmartCards myself.  Acrobat will do it just fine. Regards, Lew

On 2/7/24 07:41, Rainer Klier wrote:

i don't understand why you don't try free account on with this web application you can easily fill out and even sign PDF documents.

I guess, for my part, I'm tired of the proliferation of time saving little things like this. Everybody seems to think that I have nothing better to do with my time than signup for their "Free" application. Meaning that I'd have to create a new user-id/password for each and every one. Unless I use some variation of my name and a password of "9455W0rd", common to all of them. Not exactly good cybersecurity. As it is I have an encrypted document, the password isn't written down anywhere, on the computer to keep track of all the ones I use, but not often enough to remember what the magic name/password is, and for the executor of my estate. What's starting to be even more fun now days is the double verification process where they text message me a six digit pin each time I login. Great unless I'm some place where my phone doesn't work, like Europe or Canada. Yep it's happened to me. Sorry, not trying to rant at you. It's starting to be my new pet peeve. “The good thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.” ― Andrew S. Tanenbaum

On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 08:08:17 -0800, Lew Wolfgang <wolfgang@sweet-haven.com> wrote:

On 2/7/24 06:41, Rainer Klier wrote:

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hi, Am 06.02.24 um 19:34 schrieb Bob Williams:      I'll print it out and fill it in by hand.

i don't understand why you don't try free account on https://saas.esignanywhere.net <https://saas.esignanywhere.net> with this web application you can easily fill out and even sign PDF documents.

Interesting.  Does this site allow one to upload a pre-existing PDF form and sign it with a SmartCard certificate?

Another command from the poppler-tools package, 'pdfsig', can sign PDFs. Here is an example from the man page:   pdfsig input.pdf output.pdf -add-signature -nss-pwd password -nick   'pkcs11:token=smartcard0;object=Second%20certificate;type=cert'          Same,  but uses a PKCS#11 URI as defined in IETF RFC 7512 to se-          lect the certificate to be used for signing.

What steps are taken to protect the content of the signed forms from compromise?

-- Robert Webb

On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 14:50:00 -0800, Lew Wolfgang <wolfgang@sweet-haven.com> wrote:

On 2/7/24 12:57, Robert Webb via openSUSE Users wrote:

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   On Wed, 7 Feb 2024 08:08:17 -0800, Lew Wolfgang<wolfgang@sweet-haven.com>  wrote:

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Interesting.  Does this site allow one to upload a pre-existing PDF form and sign it with a SmartCard certificate?

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Another command from the poppler-tools package, 'pdfsig', can sign PDFs. Here is an example from the man page:

    pdfsig input.pdf output.pdf -add-signature -nss-pwd password -nick     'pkcs11:token=smartcard0;object=Second%20certificate;type=cert'

           Same,  but uses a PKCS#11 URI as defined in IETF RFC 7512 to se-            lect the certificate to be used for signing.

Wow!  That's good to know, I'll try it.  What happens if the PDF has two or more signature fields?  Acrobat allows you to select which one you're signing.

I've never used it.  From pdfsig(1):   -sign  field          Sign the document in the specified signature  field  present  in          the  document  (must  be  unsigned).   Field can be specified by          field name (string) or the n-th signature field in the  document          (integer). -- Robert Webb