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rhinogulius
rhinogulius
Inspiring
April 27, 2016
Question

Adding PDF form fields corrupts background graphics

  • April 27, 2016
  • 6 replies
  • 682 views

Hello. My bank client has a 2-page budget form that they created in InDesign that they would like me to turn into an interactive form with form fields that calculate. I successfully created all the fields, added functionality, and the form works great! But then noticed that the top and bottom background graphics are messed up. They do not display correctly. There is supposed to be a big, sweeping red swoosh that bleeds off the top and bottom and it is completely gone off the bottom and the top swoosh is reduced to a random floating red rectangle. This is unacceptable. What could be causing the corruption of the background graphics? I can post screen shots of the before and after but don't know where to post those. Thanks for any help.

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6 replies

rhinogulius
rhinoguliusAuthor
Inspiring
April 27, 2016

Thank you. I am not sure I can as it is a client's project in progress so it is not yet approved.

Here's what I know now: I recreated the whole layout in InDesign, remade a PDF, opened it in Acrobat and copied and pasted all the fields back over the new PDF and the problem did not occur. So in light of that, I am going to have to say that there is a problem with how the original PDF was made. Maybe after this project is approved, I can revisit and send you the PDF that was giving me problems. I am still curious what made it react that way. It suspect it is a transparency/rendering issue with hidden clipping masks that was added to the original swooshes. Because I recreated them without masks and now it's fine. Just a theory.

rhinogulius
rhinoguliusAuthor
Inspiring
April 27, 2016

I would love to redo the PDF but since I do not have the original InDesign file, I cannot do that easily. The client has given me permission to recreate the form. In lieu of resolving this issue in Acrobat, I am left with trying this option and remaking the PDF to see if it helps resolve the issue.

G
George_Johnson
Inspiring
April 27, 2016

I'd be interested in looking at the original PDF if you're free to post it somewhere or email me: acroscript at gmail dot com

rhinogulius
rhinoguliusAuthor
Inspiring
April 27, 2016

effect, rather.

rhinogulius
rhinoguliusAuthor
Inspiring
April 27, 2016

I also tried pasting just ONE form field and it has the same affect on the background graphics.

rhinogulius
rhinoguliusAuthor
Inspiring
April 27, 2016

Unfortunately, yes. I have also tried deleting all the fields to see if the graphics return and also copying all the fields and pasting them onto a fresh PDF where the graphics are good and nothing works. In fact, when pasting the fields onto a fresh PDF, I get this result:

Then as soon as I move the fields and click off into the gray pasteboard this happens:

G
George_Johnson
Inspiring
April 27, 2016

You can post screen shots in a reply by clicking the "Insert Image" icon on the toolbar. It's the 7th icon from the left.

    rhinogulius
    rhinoguliusAuthor
    Inspiring
    April 27, 2016

    Here's the form before adding fields.

    Here's the page after adding fields.

    G
    George_Johnson
    Inspiring
    April 27, 2016

    Does it still display incorrectly when you close out of form editing mode by clicking the X in the upper-right just to the right of the Preview button?

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