Adobe AcrobatPro DC won't let me edit a pdf form after I saved it.

[Roy Arthur]

I work with a lot of government documents that come in pfd formats. Recently Adobe was working on some other issues with my Adobe AcrobatPro DC account and now when I go to edit something in my pdfs I get a pop up window telling me I can't edit the form in Adobe Acrobat but I should use Adobe LiveCycle Designer. This is very strange as I've been using Adobe for years and have edited typos and sentences, etc. without such a popup occurring. This started a few days ago when the Adobe specialist was working on my other issue via remote control and they changed the settings so that whenever I click on a pdf document sitting on my iMac desktop it opens with my name and account in the upper right hand corner. That feature never never was there in all the years I've been using Adobe. I was unable to find Adobe LiveCycle Designer online. I don’t have a cell phone so I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it. Any assistance would be appreciated.

[gary_sc]

Hi Roy,

Let me give you a real quick answer while you wait for a more educated answer with (hopefully) some helpful information.

Live Cycle was an Adobe PC-only application that excelled in making forms. Its main back draw was that it required Live Cycle to do updates, repairs, and anything to those files, even though, by all accounts, it would appear that Acrobat Pro should be able to do the trick. But, as you've observed, it cannot.

Since I am a Mac user as well, I've never even seen LC, even though I've been a heavy Acrobat Pro user since. v. 3.

That's the basics; now, you'll have to wait until an ex-LC user pipes up to give you any ideas for what you can/should do now. Sorry, I wish I could say more and/or help more.

[Roy Arthur]

Hi Gary. Thanks for replying. Yes, all you say makes sense to me. I've been a Mac user since 1999 and I've used Adobe programs for many years and I've never come across this issue before. When I was working with the Adobe specialist on another issue I had a number of legal documents from the BC government sitting on my desktop. It was then that the specialist somehow changed a setting on my machine so that whenever I clicked on one of them it would open like it always did only now it automatically opens and show my name up in the upper right corner. See screenshot. It lights up when you put your cursor on it but if you click on it nothing happens. I got an email notice yesterday from Adobe saying my case was still open I could contact them Monday or Tuesday. Hopefully they'll resolve it then.  

[Roy Arthur]

I should have added to my previous post that when I would click on the "Edit PDF" below the Comment on the right that all I got was the following pop up:

[try67]

This just means it's logged in to your account on Adobe. And there's nothing to resolve.

These files can't be edited using Acrobat, period.

[try67]

LCD used to come bundled with Acrobat Pro (for Windows), but that's no longer the case. To be able to edit an LCD form now you will need to purchase a product called AEM Forms Manager. I would suggest you convert the file to a "normal" PDF form if you want to be able to edit it using Acrobat in the future.

[Roy Arthur]

Thanks Try67. I'll be doing as you suggest and hopefully they'll change the settings so it works like it used to. 

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS]

You can check to see if your agency has access to any LiveCycle Designer or AEM Manager licenses you can request. 

As @try67 mentioned, LCD used to come with Acrobat 7-X. The interface was a little clunky but it had features that would make an Acrobat form designer drool in envy 😁. One can only hope that some of the features make their way into Acrobat Pro someday.

I still have and use LCD/AEM 6.4 on my Windows 10 system. This is what it looks like:

[Roy Arthur]

Thanks David. It appears the specialist working on my machine may not have realized I had a 24" iMac desktop machine. I don't do Windows so whatever they did will have to be undone. Appreciate you taking the time to post.

[Bernd Alheit]

Why want you edit government forms?

[Roy Arthur]

Hi Bernd. I'm filling out Probate documents. My youngest son passed away on January 25, 2022 and he didn't leave a Will and I am applying for a grant of administration of his estate. Why would you ask?

[Test Screen Name · Accepted solution]

On no account EVER use "Edit" on a Government form. Seriously, never. (Unless of course you work for the government!) This may actually be illegal. 

But you don't NEED to edit a fillable form. You just type in it to fill it in.

Follow the instructions in the form only - this does not mention edit, only fill.

[Roy Arthur]

I just received an email from Adobe asking me to go back to this discussion and click on any replies that resolved the issues mentioned here.

I can't honestly say that the issue was totally resolved. It appears that some (government?) documents are pre-set to not allow for editing (although I'm still not convinced of this) and that I ought to (if I run into the problem) use my Adobe program to export the pdf as a Word document and give it a new name and then I would be able to edit it again without any hassles. The process involved in reaching this point was so onerous and taxing that I really haven't been doing anything with my pdfs lately. On top of that, when I follow this procedure I run into another issue of having to purchase the "Pages" app so I can access the Word document. It all seems so odd. I appreciated the replies and suggestions but to be fully honest I cannot say anything truly helped resolve the issue and I'm not blaming anyone who did try to assist me.

[Test Screen Name]

Also, do not Export. Do nothing like this to Government forms!! Forms are processed automatically, not read by humans. If you actually did manage to fill the form, they would, at best, reject it. 

[Roy Arthur]

Hi TSN,

There's a major error here in all these replies and it's due possibly to my own mistake in identifying the original problem. Here's the basic problem. I download a government document from the net. I open it with my Adobe Acrobat DC Pro. There are blank, open windows where one answers questions posed by the document. They could be anything from putting in your name or your physical address or describing some activity such as giving directions to find a specific location. So I fill in these blank windows and then save my document. When I open it up again I find that I've either made a spelling mistake or given the wrong information in a window. So what I have always done is just click on the Edit feature and then go and fix my mistake. I DON'T TRY TO EDIT THE ACTUAL FORMAT OF THE DOMUMENT ITSELF. But, this time when I click Edit is when I started to get the popup telling me that I couldn't edit it. That's the long and the short of all this issue.

[try67]

You don't need to click Edit in order to edit your own input to the form. You should be able to do it just like you originally inserted the text into the file, ie. click the field and type into it.

That won't be possible if you signed the file, though.

[Roy Arthur]

Thanks try67. I'll remember that especially the part about signing it.

Arthur.

[gary_sc]

Hi Roy,

Please, Test Screen Name is absolutely correct here. 

If you were asking how to defuse a bomb and someone said, "do not do that." You HAVE gotten your answer, and it is the correct answer. If you knew how to defuse a bomb, you would not need to ask how to do that. If you asked how, that means you do not know how to defuse a bomb, and if someone says to you, "do not do that." Then you've gotten your correct answer, even if it wasn't the one you wanted to hear.

Even if you see something obvious, like a misspelling on a govt. form. That's not your responsibility to fix. Just fill in the form and send it back.