My Adobe PDF form appears blank

[#1]

My Adobe PDF form is being sent as an email attachment. With the prior version in IOS IPhone when I opened the PDF through Adobe Acrobat the form would show all the populated fields.

With the new update, the form show up blank....the fields do not appear Populated unless I highlight the cell.  Once the cell is closed, the cell it goes blank again.

FYI on a Windows or Mac laptop the PDF is populated.   It appears to be an IOS issue. How can I modify or fix to allow the form to be fully visible on the IPhone?

[#2]

My Adobe PDF form is being sent as an email attachment. With the prior version in IOS IPhone when I opened the PDF through Adobe Acrobat the form would show all the populated fields.

With the new update, the form show up blank....the fields do not appear Populated unless I highlight the cell.  Once the cell is closed, the cell it goes blank again.

FYI on a Windows or Mac laptop the PDF is populated.   It appears to be an IOS issue. How can I modify or fix to allow the form to be fully visible on the IPhone?

[#3]

Hi,

I created a new forum thread for you.

Have you used any other non-Adobe apps on your mobile device or computer to create or fill out the form?  In particular, have you used Apple Preview on your Mac laptop to fill out the form?

To properly diagnose the problem, we would like to examine your PDF form.

Would you be willing to share your PDF form with us (Adobe)?  I sent you a private forum message with the instructions on how to share your PDF form with us.

Thank you for your help!

[#4 · Accepted solution]

Hi,

We received your PDF form via email.  Thank you!

First, I opened your PDF form in the desktop version of Acrobat Reader DC on a Mac computer.  The populated fields appeared blank as well.

The Document Properties dialog (File > Properties...) shows that the PDF form was generated by Mac OS X 10.11.1. Quartz PDFContext.

The PDF forms generated by Apple products or filled out in Apple Preview (desktop app) contain invalid entries that cause populated fields to appear blank.

To repair the existing faulty PDF form

• Open the PDF form in Acrobat Reader (desktop or mobile app), click/tap each populated field, append space, and remove the space.  (This repairs an individual field.)
• Open the PDF form in Acrobat Pro or Standard (paid desktop app), clear all of the text fields, then fill out the form again.

In the future, it is recommended to

• Avoid using Apple Preview (desktop app) on a Mac computer to fill out PDF forms.
• Use the Acrobat Reader mobile app for iOS or Android to fill out PDF forms.
• Use the desktop version of Acrobat Reader DC on a Mac or Windows computer to fill out PDF forms.

Please let us know if you have further questions.

Thank you.

[#5]

This seems to be an Adobe  bug - not an Apple preview bug.

I've been completing PDF forms with Apple Preview for literally years and never had a problem until recently with one customer. They found this bug report online and pointed me here.

Apple Preview SHOULD be compatible with Acrobat and PDFs in general and vice versa.

[#6]

You are responding to a three year old thread but to address your comments …

Apple's Preview program does not fully comply with the ISO PDF specification and is known to corrupt PDF forms. It is not an “Adobe bug” …

            - Dov

[#7]

I won't label this as an Adobe "bug", but I do find it intriguing since I discovered this issue recently with our users as well. Adobe Acrobat(and Reader) are tremendously widely used programs on both Windows and Mac, both of which we have in our own environment. I have found that these PDF filled forms edited from Apple's PDF preview are readable in other applications outside of  Adobe. Is this particular "inconvenience" being addressed or is there any discussion between Adobe and Apple to sort this out? If Apple isn't complying with "ISO PDF" specification, shouldn't Adobe at least be working to ensure compatibility between the two? I see that above it is recommended to "Avoid using Apple Preview (desktop app) on a Mac computer to fill out PDF forms", but unfortunately this is often out of our control as we work with external contacts.

[#8]

I am Tech Support for a high school and we have run into this issue extensively this year.  Our experience would most certainly support the conclusion that this issue lies somewhere in the Mac OS operating system, however it would probably take Adobe fixing it for this issue to be completely eliminated across platforms.  One of our administrators created a form for our teachers to fill out on his iMac (the majority of our teachers use PCs).  He did not however use Preview, he actually used Adobe Acrobat DC.  The issue is as others have described, filling in forms on this file and then saving will yield a file that opens and shows the fields as blank until they are clicked on.  I have found that simply adding a space to the field seems to "fix" the form and the text stays visible after a save and subsequent reopening of the file on another system.  I am guessing that however these forms are created by MacOS is somehow fundamentally different than on a PC so something is, in essence, lost in translation when the file is opened and edited on a PC. I have found that adding a change to the form seems to overwrite the previous data in the form and causes it to show correctly.  The other strange thing is that sometimes the forms will show up just fine, but opening the same file repeatedly on the same system will eventually cause some of the forms to go blank.  We also have seen it happen even when the latest Adobe Acrobat DC version is intalled, or when an older version is installed.  I would not be quick to assign "blame" to Apple or to Adobe, since each has reasons for the ways their code works.  I do think that since the one thing that is the same across platforms is the fact that Acrobat is an Adobe product, the burden of fixing this issue should mostly be the responsibility of Adobe.  Since getting the file to show "correctly" would essentially involve changing the file as it is opened, some sort of warning would probably need to be shown to the user (this file was not created on the same OS and must be reformatted to show correctly on your station, or something to this effect).  I have seen posts about this issue online that stretch back over a decade and going from Mac to PC (or vice versa) seems to be the common theme.  I'm guessing it is something that Adobe knows about but is probably a complex problem to fix as it involves proprietary code in Apple products. That code is also subject to change with OS updates and Apple is not exactly forthcoming with the inner workings of their devices, even to developers they have a decent relationship with (like Adobe).  Please excuse the long post to the this old question, just thought I'd add my 2 cents.