Unable to view Adobe Forms

[Oghosa]

When I received PDF files which are forms from certain organizations, I am not able to view the content of the forms.  I get the message

The document you are trying to load requires Adobe Reader 8 or higher. You may not have the Adobe Reader installed or your viewing environment may not be properly configured to use Adobe Reader. For information on how to install Adobe Reader and configure your viewing environment please see http://www.adobe.com/go/pdf_forms_configure.

or

Please wait... If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document. You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac, or Linux® by visiting http://www.adobe.com/go/reader_download. For more assistance with Adobe Reader visit http://www.adobe.com/go/acrreader. Windows is either a registered trademark or a trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Mac is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the United States and other countries. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

Note that I am trying to open these files with Adobe Reader DC or Adobe Acrobat Pro DC.  From previous post on this, some people have had success using the Adobe native app to open these files and it works for them.  This has not worked for me.  I just want to know if the files are broken or if it is my Adobe Reader DC or Acrobat DC that is the problem.  I have some of these files available if needed.

Thanks,

[~graffiti]

How are you getting these pdf's to your computer? Many browsers are not using Reader to view pdf files and they destroy forms especially. The error you are getting is common when you try to click on a link to a pdf from within one of those browsers. If that is what you are doing, instead of clicking on the link, right-click the link, choose to save the file to your computer, open Reader (or Acrobat) and use File>Open to open the pdf.

You can not click on the link to open it and choose to save it from there. It has to be saved to your computer BEFORE you visit the pdf (or that message will be transferred to a pdf).

[ZainAnsari]

Hi Oghosa​

Can you share any PDF file which, includes from but ,you are unable to view the content as you have described?
I will open on my end and will see if it's showing the content or not?

As it is not appears to be an application issue.

[Oghosa]

Thanks everyone for your response, I will try and answer each question

1. ~graffiti - The forms are sent to me via email and my email client is Outlook 2016.  The file is downloaded and saved to a folder on my desktop.  Then I use Adobe Reader DC or Acrobat Pro DC to open the file.

2. ZainAnsari - I will send you two of the files.  Please treat them as confidential.  Thanks

[Thom Parker]

The files you posted do not contain any content other than the error message. The document metadata indicates that they were created with LiveCycle. Howevever, they are not LiveCycle forms. It appears that the XFA form content has been stripped out.

[Thom Parker]

It's possible that the XFA content was stripped through the process of transferring the files to you.

[Oghosa]

Thanks Thom for the response.  It is possible the content was stripped through the process of transfer.  Is there a recommended way of sending Adobe forms?

[Thom Parker]

If it was removed from a PDF that was an email attachment, then it was done on either an email server, or your local security software, or email client. None of these are Adobe or PDF issues.  You'll need to talk to your IT people and the people that source the form. Find out if anyone know anything about this. And see if you can get the forms in another way, such as through a file sharing service.

[Oghosa]

Thank you everyone for your assistance with this.  Was finally able to get to the root cause of the issue.  As Thom noted, our local security software was stripping the forms of it's XDA and java script content before delivering the attachment.  The original attachments were recovered and all is now okay.  Policy change is on it's way to properly inform end users when their email attachment has been modified by the security software.