How to lock form fields after filling the form

[dinaw6371955]

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

[Tariq Ahmad Dar · Accepted solution]

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.

[GregMil]

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.

[try67]

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

[Kelly2009cats]

Hi Greg, 

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

[try67]

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

[Dean.rl]

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.

[try67]

You hit CTRL + P to print...

By Dean.rl

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

[Dean.rl]

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?

[try67]

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.

[Dean.rl]

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.

[Awwphooey]

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.

[ignaxing]

This worked wonderful for me!

Thanks!!

[McAngel4]

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. 

[TARAGOISISI]

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

[try67]

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();

[Michael27167458tjm4]

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

[Michael27167458tjm4]

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? 

[try67]

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...

[Tyler25002562d6tu]

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. 

[georgie190501]

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. 

[try67]

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...

[joshua_5661]

What I did was set the document security to allow filling existing fields and signing the document, then added a button with a custom script to prepare it for the customer where the fields I wanted locked were set to readonly, and as a final step set the button to hidden and non printable.  This way, the fields I locked can only be changed with the document password., but the customer can still input their information and sign it.  If I need to change my part, all I need is the document password and I can manually unlock the field I need to change, and relock it.

[Jonathan Heberline]

Hi Joshua,

I'm new to scripting and very novice. But your solution so far seems to be the one I'm looking for! Can you provide a bit of guidance on how you set up this button in regards to the script you used? I made an attempt myself, but I definately broke something and rage-quit! lol

[Jonathan Heberline]

I just did a band-aid fix. I added an e-signnature form field, and then added a script "getField("Signature1").display = display.hidden;" so when the user signs the form, it locks all the fields, but keeps all the rich text formattting, and then the signature field disappears on the new signed PDF. It's not a perfect solution, but it will work until I figure out a better solution! 🙂