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NateW81881
NateW81881
Known Participant
February 13, 2024
Question

PDF and Cross platform problems

  • February 13, 2024
  • 1 reply
  • 2849 views

My company is going "paperless" or trying, and I have been working on bringing the forms we use up to date. So we are using windows and iPads in the office, and iPad in the shop and onsite with our installers. The cloud storage we are using is Google Drive, not my choice but I have to work with it. I have created a form in Illistraror and finished it in acrobat pro, everything is updated as of this post. 

The issue is that when the PDF is placed in the drive, one of the people with an iPad edits the PDF with the built-in pdf reader/editor in the google drive app, saves it, then later on someone on a pc opens the form to edit it and the fields are messed up. When Adobe is the only thing used there seems to be no issues. 

So because iOS don't have a way to set default apps does anyone know a way to make the pc/drive/ipad pdf work without going unreadable or can I add something that will not allow the pdf to be opened in google drive but only adobe acrobat or reader? I have placed the latest test with difficulty field filled out. There are fields that have information but have gone blank till you click on them. If the field looks normal click on it and it should shift. 

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    1 reply

    S_S
    Community Manager
    S_SCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    February 29, 2024

    Hi @NateW81881,

     

    Hope you are doing well. Thank you for writing in!

     

    Since iOS does not have the option to set default applications for all purposes, I would like to suggest a workaround.

     

    You can open Acrobat, click the three dots to the right of the file name-> click "Star."

     

    Once done, the form would stand out in the starred section of your application for anyone to use, saving you the hassle of re-organize the contents.

     

    Let me know if this is a workable solution for you.

     

    -Souvik

    NateW81881
    NateW81881Author
    Known Participant
    March 5, 2024

    Thank you for the reply. So since the original post things have just spiraled to the point that my boss thinks that I have wasted the company's money with the time it took me to redo all our forms and turn them into fillible PDFs. He is convinced that the drive is the answer to making the company "paperless" and has informed me that "if it's not in the drive then it doesn't exist." So thank you for your assistance but I had to recreate the forms in sheets because according to my boss, PDFs don't work. I've been through tons of posts but have yet to find anything to keep the google drive iOS app from corrupting the PDFs. If anyone has a solution I would be very interested in reading about it, if nothing more than to learn how to keep this from happening again and to hopefully help someone else. Please no suggestions about going to a better cloud-based platform, I'm done with that argument. Thank you

    S_S
    Community Manager
    S_SCommunity Manager
    Community Manager
    March 5, 2024

    Hi @NateW81881,

     

    Thanks for writing back! 

     

    The solution was not to move to a different cloud service but to keep the file atop the section of files on the list for better visibility.

     

    -Souvik

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