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How to lock form fields after filling the form

New Here ,
Jan 06, 2017 Jan 06, 2017

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how do I save changes to a fillable form after the form fields have been filled? I dont want it to be editable again. I am working with Adobe Acrobat Standard DC

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correct answers 1 Correct answer

Adobe Employee , Feb 03, 2017 Feb 03, 2017

Hi dinaw6371955,

You can sign a document and choose option lock the document after signing it. https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/how-to-lock-form-fields-using-a-digital-signature

Let us know if that helps.

-Tariq Dar.

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Adobe Employee ,
Feb 03, 2017 Feb 03, 2017

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Hi dinaw6371955,

You can sign a document and choose option lock the document after signing it. https://acrobatusers.com/tutorials/how-to-lock-form-fields-using-a-digital-signature

Let us know if that helps.

-Tariq Dar.

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New Here ,
Mar 25, 2021 Mar 25, 2021

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This explains how to CREATE a form that can be locked with a signature, but it does not explain how a user who completes a filable form can simply save it as a completed form that can't be altered when emailed to someone else. That's what I need to be able to do.

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Community Expert ,
Mar 25, 2021 Mar 25, 2021

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They need to sign the digital signature field, and then the form fields will be locked.

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New Here ,
Jun 23, 2021 Jun 23, 2021

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Hi Greg, 

Did you ever figure out a way to do this?  I am having the same problem. 

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Community Expert ,
Jun 23, 2021 Jun 23, 2021

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Look under the Signed tab in the Properties of your signature field.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 13, 2021 Jul 13, 2021

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You hit CTRL + P to print, and choose 'Adobe PDF' as your printer, click 'print'. Chose where you want to save it, and voila, it will get rid of the 'blue' form field.

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Community Expert ,
Jul 13, 2021 Jul 13, 2021

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quote

You hit CTRL + P to print...


By @Dean.rl

 

This is pretty much the worst way of doing it...

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 13, 2021 Jul 13, 2021

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What are you trying to say Mr? I am just giving a straightforward way on how to get rid of the blue form. Please define your 'worst'. Attached is the result, correct me if I am wrong, Greg and Kelly just want to get rid of the blue thing?

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Community Expert ,
Jul 13, 2021 Jul 13, 2021

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They don't want to just "get rid of the blue thing". They want to make the fields uneditable.

Your method just converts them to static contents. Anyone with Acrobat can then go and edit that text.

Also, in the process of "re-frying" the file you're getting rid of a lot of potentially important information that they might not want to get rid of (metadata, comments, bookmarks, links, to name a few).

So yes, your method will achieve the very narrow goal of getting rid of the editable fields, but in the wider view it doesn't achieve the desired goal and causes damage to the file, which is why I consider it the worst possible option of doing it.

 

Not to mention it only works in Acrobat, and on Windows. There's no virtual printer on Mac computers, or if the file is used in Reader... Digitally signing the file can be done in Reader and on either platform.

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Community Beginner ,
Jul 13, 2021 Jul 13, 2021

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Thank you so much for the clarification, I understand now. There are so many things happening behind the scene. 

What I've given out was just a plain and simple straightforward solution, yes indeed very narrow solutions. Because in my case the document is not a concern with all Metadata, comments, bookmarks, links, etc. It is simply getting rid of all 'blue' forms fields so that others couldn't edit the fill text anymore. Very narrow solutions indeed.

 

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New Here ,
Sep 13, 2022 Sep 13, 2022

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Dean.rl - for what I need to do, which is basically have a form fillable master cover sheet which i can use to contact different vendors (basically, the entire cover needs to keep the same body text info, I just need to change the company name text field and product table text field depending on who I send it to), this works perfectly. Thank you.

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New Here ,
Apr 06, 2022 Apr 06, 2022

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Is there a way to lock one field on the fillable form (not signature)? I am setting up an estimate doc that we fill out the amount and then the customer has to  input a couple fields and sign it.  I don't want them able to change the estimate amount. 

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New Here ,
Nov 27, 2023 Nov 27, 2023

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Did you ever find a solution for this. This is what I need to know 🙂

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Community Expert ,
Nov 28, 2023 Nov 28, 2023

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The simplest (and least secure) way of doing it is to set the fields as read-only. You can do that with this code:

this.getField("FieldName").readonly = true;

Or all fields in the file:

for (var i=0; i<this.numFields; i++) {
	var fname = this.getNthFieldName(i);
	var f = this.getField(fname);
	if (f==null) continue;
	f.readonly = true;
}

Above that you can flatten the file, converting all fields in it to static contents, but that only works in Acrobat. You can do that using this code:

this.flattenPages();

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 17, 2022 Nov 17, 2022

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Is there a way to do this automatically upon saving and without signing? 

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Community Beginner ,
Nov 17, 2022 Nov 17, 2022

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Can this be used to partially lock a form? can you have a multi staged form with different fillable boxes tied to different form fill fields? 

 

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Community Expert ,
Nov 17, 2022 Nov 17, 2022

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It's possible, but you need to think it through. Imagine the user filled in some form fields and decided to save the file. All of a sudden, those fields are locked and they can't change their values any longer. What if they made a mistake in one of those fields and what to correct it later on? They won't be able to do so and will have to restart the form from scratch. I can guarantee they won't be happy if that happens...

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New Here ,
Mar 31, 2023 Mar 31, 2023

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You could say the same inversely. You don't want your clients changing the numbers once you've filled them in and locked them. You want certain areas to be locked for non-editing, but still be "editable" so they can fill in their information; name, date, signature. 

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New Here ,
Jan 10, 2024 Jan 10, 2024

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Hi! 

I found a way to lock specific forms to make them uneditable to others without doing the above challenging things. Hopefully, this makes sense so users in 2024 and onwards don't continue to have this trouble with the updated Adobe PDF. 

Go to the 'Prepare Form' menu tool 

> Create your desired form and then *right click* the field you want to lock 

> Select the 'properties' option and go to the 'General' tab (the 1st one) 

> Once there look at the 'common properties' greyed-out field 

> Select 'read-only' and it locks the information so no one can edit the information. 

 

If you need to change the locked information do the same thing but unselect the 'read-only' option edit the information and then repeat the above process. 

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Community Expert ,
Jan 10, 2024 Jan 10, 2024

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You can do it for multiple fields at once, but be aware this is far from secure. Anyone with Acrobat will be able to do the same and just make them editable once more. They could even change their values (using a script) without having to do that first...

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