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I used to have good luck using pdftk for filling out forms and the IRS seemed to encode them well, but it looks like pdftk is mostly dead. Nowadays, evince see

by kxyvr 7y ago

I used to have good luck using pdftk for filling out forms and the IRS seemed to encode them well, but it looks like pdftk is mostly dead. Nowadays, evince seems to work OK, sometimes, for filling out forms. And, yes, Acrobat seems to be the only piece of software that does all of them. That said, my personal favorite for a complete screw you to the format comes from Texas and form 2382: https://hhs.texas.gov/laws-regulations/forms/2000-2999/form-2382-assisted-living-facilities-checklist https://hhs.texas.gov/laws-regulations/forms/2000-2999/form-... If you decompress it, you'll find that they encoded an HTML webpage into the PDF and, as far as I can tell, this can only be viewed on Windows with Acrobat. It's almost like Texas doesn't want people to apply for medicaid funds.

phonon 7y ago
They used Livecycle (XFA) forms. It's not part of the latest PDF standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFA Here is a plain Acroform version :-) https://send.firefox.com/download/3d2da3ccd62d4ce9/#CJRCa5XOhZyW2mWMctlkdg https://send.firefox.com/download/3d2da3ccd62d4ce9/#CJRCa5XO...
- kxyvr 7y ago
  Ha! Finally an answer to what these forms are. Thanks! Speaking of which, what software did you use to make the conversion? It might be nice to pass this information along to the agency to see if they'd be willing to convert all their forms.
  - justbaker 7y ago
    >It might be nice to pass this information along to the agency to see if they'd be willing to convert all their forms. If you see a way to, make them pay for it; there is money to be made.
  - phonon 7y ago
    Save file as Static PDF Form from Livecycle/AEM. (That means advanced capabilities like tables that can "grow" are removed.) Open in Acrobat Pro. Extract the pages (Shift-rightclick the thumbnails on the left side) to a new PDF. If you asked Adobe, they would say this is not possible. :-)
swiley 7y ago
I filled out my taxes with evince a couple years ago, it felt pretty neat using only open source software to do it (and seeing the whole form at once was way less stressful for me compared to how turbo tax does it, I know some people are the opposite though.)

by kxyvr 7y ago

phonon 7y ago

They used Livecycle (XFA) forms. It's not part of the latest PDF standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFA Here is a plain Acroform version :-) https://send.firefox.com/download/3d2da3ccd62d4ce9/#CJRCa5XOhZyW2mWMctlkdg https://send.firefox.com/download/3d2da3ccd62d4ce9/#CJRCa5XO...

kxyvr 7y ago
Ha! Finally an answer to what these forms are. Thanks! Speaking of which, what software did you use to make the conversion? It might be nice to pass this information along to the agency to see if they'd be willing to convert all their forms.
- justbaker 7y ago
  >It might be nice to pass this information along to the agency to see if they'd be willing to convert all their forms. If you see a way to, make them pay for it; there is money to be made.
- phonon 7y ago
  Save file as Static PDF Form from Livecycle/AEM. (That means advanced capabilities like tables that can "grow" are removed.) Open in Acrobat Pro. Extract the pages (Shift-rightclick the thumbnails on the left side) to a new PDF. If you asked Adobe, they would say this is not possible. :-)

swiley 7y ago

I filled out my taxes with evince a couple years ago, it felt pretty neat using only open source software to do it (and seeing the whole form at once was way less stressful for me compared to how turbo tax does it, I know some people are the opposite though.)