Viewing PDFs edited by Apple Preview

This stated problem of PDF forms filled in via Apple's Preview application program has been a major problem for many years. Simply stated, that software doesn't fully obey the PDF specifications. This manifests itself in PDF files that are displayed inaccurately, especially when certain transparency modes and ICC color management is involved as well as in PDF file corruption when PDF files are saved from Preview. Such corruption is especially noticeable when PDF forms are filled out and saved from Preview.

Apple has long been aware of these issues but apparently has no real interest in resolving them. At best, one should consider Preview as a compact and fast, yet potentially inaccurate viewer of PDF files. Beyond that, we've warned you!

One doesn't need to pay anything to Adobe to fill out PDF forms. The free Adobe Acrobat Reader is readily downloadable from https://get.adobe.com/reader/ . Just make sure you uncheck the “optional offers” (typically for third party security products that you probably don't need).

Yes, HTML forms are an alternative to PDF forms, but they come with their own set of “issues” in terms of difficulty in creating a “copy of record” of the filled-out form (unless the HTML, CSS, and Javascript is just right, conversions of web pages can be iffy at best). Also, HTML and CSS are not international standards, but rather “recommendations” that could yield differences in how HTML-based forms operate based on which web browser is used (unless the HTML form designer is quite fastidious).

I would take the route of informing the client to use Acrobat for this purpose.  As convenient as the Apple Preview might seem, it has been causing issues with PDFs for years!

My best,

Dave

Apple Preview is not a PDF-compliant processor: it does not comply with how PDFs should be viewd, edited, or interacted with (like when filling in forms).

As @gary_sc noted, it's a mess for forms and is basically non-functional with them.

And he's right about everything else in that post!

Apple Preview is a great application to view PDFs. It is very fast and can do a few other things like markup on the original document.

However, it is a mess when it comes to filling in forms. To avoid this, have your clients simply download the free Adobe Reader and avoid the problem. 

Simply, Acrobat follows the ISO standards much more closely than Apple Preview does and that is the answer. The PDF format is an international format run by the ISO organization. If Apple Preview properly followed that than you wouldn't be writing to Adobe now.

Yes, you can rewrite your form in HTML as Bernd suggests but the one negative about that is that there is no actual record of the event in the possiblity that something goes wrong (like sending a webbased letter to a company who doesn't respond but you have no copy of your letter unless you copied and pasted it for the record).

To avoid this issue use a HTML form.