Re: Using Adobe Reader et al. to fill out IRS forms. How?

Are you sure you don't have Adobe Acrobat Standard edition, not just the Reader edition that is free?

Here is how it is supposed to work, and how it has worked for the last few years:

1) If you open up a PDF form with Acrobat Reader, you can fill it out, but you cannot save it. 2) If you open up a PDF form with Acrobat Standard or higher, you can both fill it out and save it.

There are many third party applications that are front ends to the "Reader" version of Acrobat that trick it into saving forms. These typically cost $49 or less.

Whether or not you can fill it out and/or save it depends on flags set by the document's creator.

Even if you have the top version, the creator can set a flag (and password protection) to prevent saving filled-out forms.

Seth

I guess, but I have never found any form that will save the changed contents using the Acrobat Reader product. I have found dozens of forms that will not save in Reader but will save in Standard.

Good point. I believe some of the third party products that modify the behavior of Reader ignore that flag.

I have the free edition. Can you save the file

open it using the standalone editor. Do Help -> About. What doyou get?

I'm glad to see someone confirm that my friend and I are not crazy! :)

Yes, according to what I just read in the PDFill help file, I had it backwards. I thought she said you coudln't fill out the form, but what it say It says you can actually fill it out and print it, but you can't save it locally!! I don't know where "non-locally" is, but most of us want it in our own computer. And that's where she got messed up. IIUC and ISRC one year she printed the forms, was in a hurry and thought she had saved the forms, made photocopies, sent the forms in, mislaid the photocopies, and until she finds the copies, she has no record of her taxes for that year!

She says that the next year, she bought for 10 dollars an unrelated, unconnected program that would edit, save, and print irs forms, but then she migrated to XP and lost the registration number. Although I installed it too, and my reg numbers are all in one place, and it's not there, so maybe it didn't work that way. She remembered it cost only 10 dollars but wanted to look for the reg number more before paying again, and now it's 20 dollars anyhow! Here is the url.

and so far it does work butfirst converts pdf files to pfl files, which is okay of course ifeverything works. I think you have to have Adobe Reader before youcan print the pfl files. It also says, "if the PDF file is a non fill-in form, Adobe Reader has no way of entering data on the form. The only solution to this up until now was to dish out more than $500 to purchase the complete Adobe Acrobat program in order to perform those tasks. But now with PDFill PDF Editor you can do all these tasks at a fraction of the cost. Furthermore, you can open PDF file, add commenting annotations or draw shapes. The edited documents can then be saved directly back to the original PDF file."

Elsewhere I've learned that an add-on to Open Office, I think it was, will allow you to fill in and save fill-in forms, or maybe he said forms, and I didn't think to ask about non-fill-in forms.

OTOH, it sure looks like this works with Adobe Reader 9 also, both saving and printing, like both Seth and Remove said, so that would mean I don't have to get Adobe Reader 10, and don't have to worry about AIR yet.

I'm actually still pretty confused, but one of these two methods should work for my friend and me.

I think you are crazy. With IRS forms, I can open using Adobe Reader 9.0.4, fill in, and save the filled in form.

Not so with California forms. I think it costs the producer of the forms more money in licensing fees to enable this feature, so California does not.

Here's what I know:

1. Many if not most of the California downloadable tax forms are fillable and savable with free Adobe Reader, have been so for a number of years.
2. Ditto for IRS forms.
3. There is no need to rush out and upgrade to Adobe X (10), in fact a quick glimpse at Adobe user forums shows that, as is typical with new versions, there are still bugs being worked out. I kept using Adobe 7 for several years after it was superseded with no problems.
4. Even if a PDF form is fillable but not savable, there is a fairly easy workaround. As long as you can print it, you can use any number of PDF print programs, such as free PDF Creator from
   formatting link
   to generate a PDF file containing anything you would normally send to the printer. So, fill out your non-savable form, then save it by printing it to a PDF file.

-Mark Bole

In article , snipped-for-privacy@msn.net (Pico Rico) writes: | | >>

| >>Are you sure you don't have Adobe Acrobat Standard edition, not just the | >>Reader edition that is free? | >>

| >>Here is how it is supposed to work, and how it has worked for the last few | >>years: | >>

| >>1) If you open up a PDF form with Acrobat Reader, you can fill it out, but | >>you cannot save it. | >

| > I'm glad to see someone confirm that my friend and I are not crazy! :) | | | I think you are crazy. With IRS forms, I can open using Adobe Reader 9.0.4, | fill in, and save the filled in form.

FWIW with Reader 6 (I believe the last version that will run on my desktop system) I can fill in the 1040 form but it pops up a box telling me that I need one of the non-free versions to save. Perhaps the ability for the content creator to pay the license fee to allow saving is newer than Reader

6 and thus not recognized?

Dumb question: does 1040 have to be printed in color or is that just decorative?

Dan Lanciani ddl@danlan.*com

Black & white 1040s work just fine.

Some are savable, some aren't.

I did black and white and double sided for my own return once.

Then you weren't reading carefully. :) I never said it didnt' work with this year's forms, but there were a few years in the 80's or 90's or maybe the 2000's where you couldn't do what you say below. Even though it had worked in earlier years.

Maybe thats' why the IRS didn't enable it for those years.

BTW, Mark and others, I've found that the Find ommand doesn't work with Adobe nine. I haven't had reason to find anything on an IRS form, but in an owners manual for something I own, I searched for words and it found no instances, even though I was looking at two and there were more. I checked and it wasn't set for anything special. No case sensitive or whole words only, and it was a whole word anyhow.

Mark, I have to find myself some old version. When I upgraded, it ruined the old version iirc.

****Here is how it is supposed to work, and how it has worked for the last few

For the last few years, you CAN save it.