Filling forms not wotking on smartphone

[christoffer_4850]

Hello,

Having some issues with the mobil application and filling of forms. I can't seem to fill the textboxes, it's like they weren't there at all. I can navigate to the Fill and Sign and then create new text basically everywhere but to use the predefined fields seems impossible. On PC (win11 24h2) it works fine and I can edit all forms on in the pdf.

Same for all PDFs I've tried. Anyone have anya ideas regarding this?
I'm on an Android v16 and using Adobe Acrobat v 25.10.1.41618 (free version)

Thankful for what help or insights I can get.

[Amal.]

Hi there 

Hope you are doing well and thank you for sharing such a detailed description of the issue. 

Have you started experiencing this issue recently, or was it occurring earlier as well?

Would you mind sharing the sample PDF file and a small video recording of the steps you are taking and the issue as it occurs so we can try to reproduce it at our end and isolate the issue for the fix.

~Amal

[christoffer_4850]

Hi Amal,

To  my knowledge we haven't tried using fillable pdfs on our smartphones earlier we've been stuck with pen and paper.
This was an attempt to change a process to something a bit more "modern". However, I seem to fail in both convincing myself of the smoothness of using a phone or tablet for filling in the documents or acctually doing it at all.

Is it possible to send the requested information in to Adobe outside of this forum? Otherwise I'll see if I can upload a pdf sample or video here. 

[Thom Parker]

Don't navigate to Fill and Sign.  That option is for filling forms that do not have form fields. (Adobe is quite good at naming things so that they have an obvious meaning, NOT).  

[christoffer_4850]

Hi Thom,

Thanks for your reply. If not from there where would you suggest? Please feel free to treat me like a 8 year old explaining since I can't figure it out for my self it seems. 😄

How I thought it would work:
- Start the app.
- Navigate to and open pdf
- Click in editable fields in pdf
- Done!

Sadly nothing happend.

[Thom Parker]

- Start the app.
- Navigate to and open pdf
- Click in editable fields in pdf
- Done!

By @christoffer_4850

That is exactly how it is supposed to work.  So I did a little testing, and I can in fact, edit forms on my Android phone with the mobile Acrobat Reader.  However, if the PDF was saved to the cloud by creating a shared link, the PDF could not be edited until a copy was created.  But if it was saved to the Adobe Cloud directly, the field could be edited. So, there is some dependency on how the PDF is made available to the mobile app. I don't know if this is the same issue you're seeing. How are the PDFs being sent to the mobile device?

As for transferring just the data, Yes, that is possible, and there is a wide variety of ways to do it.  How its doen specifically depends on the reqired workflow. 

[christoffer_4850]

Hello Thom,

Thanks again for replying. I belive that the PDFs I've been working with is generated "incorrectly" in some way.
I downloaded a diffrent PDF to my PC and noticed that the fields in that pdf was visible and editable both in a browser and in Acrobat Reader just by clicking the fields.

The other PDFs I've got to work with up to now don't behave that way. Fields wasn't directly visible in reader or browser and only editable in Reader. To be able to edit the fields I had to use "Type Text", that tool isn't even visible default in the new PDF.

Shared the new PDF to my Android and now it works out of the box.
Question that remains now is how the original PDFs get created and how we need to change them to make this work.

Back to the drawingboard for this one I guess.

[Thom Parker]

Where does this problem PDF form come from?  Can you post it?

[christoffer_4850]

It comes from business system we use and produced work orders for field workers in this case.
I'm unable to post any of the test PDFs I have available now. I can probably get a new PDF generated during officehours tomorrow that would be fine to upload.

Contacted the System Admins to see if I can get any details on the PDF creation process.

[christoffer_4850]

Managed to get a generic pdf out of the system today. Hope you can help shed some light on the situation.

[S. S]

Hi @christoffer_4850,

Hope you are doing well. Thanks for sharing a sample file.

The entire comment below is based on the observation from the shared file only:

The file isn't exactly designed as a form to be filled out online, but rather to be printed and filled out manually.

This is the sole reason why Web Browsers and Acrobat Reader for mobile are unable to capture the form fields, as none are specified on the document.

Acrobat/Reader for desktop, on the other hand, uses smart sensing of form fields, which allows it to detect form fields and enable you to fill them in, using the Fill & Sign tool.

In normal scenarios, when it comes to a simple form, the app should automatically allow users to fill in the fields without switching tools.

Hope this clarifies your concern.

Note: This observation is strictly restricted to the file you shared. The files you work with might have completely different dynamics, and the scenarios can differ.

Regards,
Souvik.

[christoffer_4850]

Thanks for your reply Souvik,

Your reply makes sense and lines up very well with my observations and earlier comments by Thom.
The whole reason for me looking into this was to get away from the paper and pen solution for our frontline workers. However my suspision was that we were going to run into this kind of bump. Without form fields that the application can auto capture I can only imaging a tedious workflow for the frontline workers since the Fill & Sign in the app doesn't make a great job of line up the fields as the desktop app.

I've reached out to our business system admins to see if something can be done.

[Thom Parker]

This is a very rudimentary PDF generated from Crystal Reports.  There aren't any form fields on this PDF. Although it looks like there are field placeholders.  How do form fields get placed on the other problem PDFs?  If there no interactive form fields, then the Fill & Sign tools are the only option for entering data. 

[christoffer_4850]

Thanks again Thom,

I don't know how the placement is done. When speaking to the system admins they didn't either. So my best guess is that the business system has that process automated. Fill & Sign does seem like the best option even if it is clumsy in the mobile app in my opinion.

Reached out to system admins that were going to contact the developer of the business system to see if anything can be done and what that would cost 🙂