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dagardner105
New Participant
October 18, 2012
Answered

Cannot Edit a Form in Adobe Acrobat Pro Xi - use Livecycle

  • October 18, 2012
  • 9 replies
  • 53792 views

Hi all,

I was advised to buy Adobe Pro XI yesterday by the Direct Sales Adobe team because it includes "everything I need" to create and EDIT PDF forms.  I actually rang up to buy X but was told it was now XI.

I tried to edit a form today and got this message:

"this form cannot be edited in Acrobat. Please use Adobe Livecycle Designer to edit this form"

I was told this was included in Pro but can't get past this message.  I previously had a trial of Adobe Pro X and WAS able to edit this very form.

It is very frustrating.  I cannot edit anything I have been working on.

FormsCentral seems too basic as I need to be able to edit the field name in the properties of the field.

Can anyone help?

Thanks


David

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer try67

    LiveCycle Designer used to be included as a part of Acrobat Pro, but that

    is no longer the case with Acrobat XI. You'll need to purchase it

    separately if you wish to edit LC PDF forms... Of course, you can still

    create PDF forms in Acrobat itself, but since the two types of forms are

    not compatible, you can't edit forms that were created in LC using Acrobat.

    9 replies

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Brainiac
    August 3, 2017

    LiveCycle Designer does not digitally sign.

    T
    Test Screen Name
    Brainiac
    March 15, 2017

    Be aware that if the form is to be submitted electronically, you should not edit it in LiveCycle Designer, or print it to PDF. What you end up with will look like the original but may be rejected, as a wrong or a blank form, by the robot that reads it (no human will). This may have serious consequences, especially for government forms.

    ianb10704575
    ianb10704575
    New Participant
    August 3, 2017

    So, because we are unable to edit a LiveCycle PDF, the government form I am trying to digitally sign....is impossible to digitally sign.

    In order to validate this official document with my signature, I'll need to either A) buy some $300 software that I'll use once, or B) print it out and mail it.

    Good job!

    try67
    try67
    Community Expert
    August 3, 2017

    No, if the form is properly set up all you need is the free Adobe Reader to sign it.

    dalec67408612
    dalec67408612
    New Participant
    March 15, 2017

    I found an easy solution that doesn't involve buying LiveCycle Designer.

    With the document open in Acrobat Pro DC, select File -> Print

    Select "save as PDF" as the printer.

    Name the file (different from the original) and give it a location.

    Open the saved file in Acrobat Pro DC. Now you can add text.

      Emmy-B
      Emmy-B
      Participating Frequently
      March 22, 2018

      This would work if you just wanted to be able to type some text in... but I need javascript out of a form I built in LiveCycle Designer...  in 2009.   I'm rebuilding the form in Acrobat and I've no clue what the coding I used was. A bunch of currency fields have to be added, then some field's content will add or subtract and come out to a final total, but I don't have the details of which fields do what. This is a pain!

      Thom Parker
      Thom Parker
      Community Expert
      March 22, 2018

      Please post this to a new thread.

      Thom Parker - Software Developer at PDFScriptingUse the Acrobat JavaScript Reference early and often
      R
      roland1313
      New Participant
      November 23, 2016

      Save your form as Word document and re open with acrobat all the form field are there , you need to add the properties

      T
      Test Screen Name
      Brainiac
      October 23, 2016

      And notice the product name is LiveCycle Designer. LiveCycle alone is a suite of apps, costing much much more than CC.

      S
      Steve L
      New Participant
      February 29, 2016

      I printed the LCD PDF as a PDF and then was able to open the new file and all the fields were editable.

      Hope this helps

      Bernd Alheit
      Bernd Alheit
      Community Expert
      March 1, 2016

      Steve L wrote:

      I printed the LCD PDF as a PDF and then was able to open the new file and all the fields were editable.

      You will lost all form fields, associated calculations, and other features.

      S
      Steve L
      New Participant
      March 1, 2016

      Correct however, I was not interested in preserving the forms functionality or redistribution for anyone else to fill out. I only wanted to edit the information already entered and add an image so if all that is required is an edit of the existing information then this method worked for me and I trust it may help others.

      M
      matulanj
      New Participant
      April 13, 2015

      I had the same problem and searched for many hours for a solution without luck.  I then realized all I had to do is was upload the file to PDFSplit online and have them split the PDF into separate the files.  It then let me sign and edit text in the PDF.  When I was done, I just used a PDF Joiner online to join the files back up again. 

      Hopefully this helps any frustration that future users may have. 

        U
        ulih58730976
        New Participant
        December 18, 2015

        I used "PDFill PDF Tools" (freeware) to merge the pdf file with an additional single page pdf. After that i removed the page with the tool's split functionality. The result is editable with Adobe Acrobat.

        A
        Anonymous
        February 23, 2016

        Thanks to ulih58730976 I managed to join and split a form using another pdf merge and split tool.

        Could not quite edit the graphics behind but managed to get the job done and dusted, far easier than recreating from scratch!

        Great 'answers' forum

        Cheers

        A
        ActionDan_OBX
        New Participant
        November 27, 2012

        We created forms in acrobat 9 pro and now with XI pro cannot edit them.  Error message states that livecycle designer is required to edit forms previously created in acrobat.  Called tech support and waited for over an hour before being told that another product needed to be purchased for $300 more than the upgrade cost for acrobat pro XI!!!  From the XI FAQ - The web site states:

        The following customers are eligible for a free upgrade:

        • Customers who purchased a prior license to Acrobat and have purchased an upgrade to Acrobat XI Pro
        • Customers who have an Adobe Maintenance and Support contract or purchased Upgrade Plan eligible for an Acrobat XI Pro upgrade
        • Active Creative Cloud Complete members whose memberships started before October 15, 2012

        The one-time LiveCycle Designer upgrade is available in English, French, German, or Japanese. Eligible customers can choose which language they would like to receive. Visit the Customer Support Portal to request an upgrade.

        After entering in the needed info on the support portal was told that adobe will Not honor the sales rep & web site which both said we are eligible for the free upgrade.  We asked for a full refund and will not longer be using any new adobe products.  We went back to 9 pro forms work fine and adobe lost $.  Nice work adobe - lie to customers and then act surprised that the customers want their $ back!  They told us to just toss their software DVD in the trash where IT belongs, so we did!

        Cheers,

        Actiondan

          delacombo
          delacombo
          Participating Frequently
          March 21, 2013

          Wow

          P
          patpai
          New Participant
          July 24, 2013

          i was looking forward to trying Acrobat XI due to the editing features. Im a form designer and i develop them in LiveCycle Designer but what happens after a form is done, i sent it to translation services. I though i might have the translators on Acrobat PRO XI and they could just ahead an do their editing.

          But i get that "To edit this form, you need to use LCD).

          i dont want to have translator use LCD as they endup having access to everything? Is there maybe a way to work around that at all?

          Thank you.

          try67
          try67Correct answer
          Community Expert
          October 18, 2012

          LiveCycle Designer used to be included as a part of Acrobat Pro, but that

          is no longer the case with Acrobat XI. You'll need to purchase it

          separately if you wish to edit LC PDF forms... Of course, you can still

          create PDF forms in Acrobat itself, but since the two types of forms are

          not compatible, you can't edit forms that were created in LC using Acrobat.

          D
          dagardner105Author
          New Participant
          October 18, 2012

          What an awful experience with Adobe today. Cut off several times, contradictory answers.  That is the first clear answer I have had.

          So basically, everything was fine on X but the purchased of XI has messed everything up.  Can't even download and buy Livecycle now, keeps referring me off to Digital Enterprise Platform with no purchase or trial link.

            D
            dagardner105Author
            New Participant
            October 18, 2012

            Now the Chat Representative has just cut off!

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