Using Reader to open and save a fillable pdf attachment to a pdf

[jwpotter]

I am returning to a question I raised once before.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader/opening-attachments-to-a-pdf-with-adobe-reader/td-p/11...

I have a pdf  with several fillable pdf forms as attachments. All are Reader extended. The main pdf is a meno with instructions on how to complete and use the atached filable forms. I want to send this to users who would comlete the forms and use them for their own purposes. As background,  it is a  effort to generate pleading for a DIY court filing.

Using Adobe Pro, after I open an atachment and  fill in blanks on the form, I can then either save or print it. If I open the main PDF and an attachment with Adobe Reader, I get a stark warning that I will need  to print the form as I cannot save the completed form. When I approached this problem before,  the suggested solution was to save the blank form before entering any information and then complete the saved blank form, or alternatively send everything as separate pdfs but in one folder.

That seemed a good solution at the time.

Now I would like to have users with a Adobe Reader to be able to open an attachmement, fill in the blanks, and then save (or print) it.

Is there a way to do this?

Thank you in advance for your guidance and stay safe.

[try67]

In theory yes, but in practice it requires File Attachment Rights, which can not be applied with Acrobat. It requires using a specialized (and very expensive) server application. In other words, it's not really feasible for anyone but very large corporations or governmental organizations.

[jwpotter]

Thank you. At least i can stop fretting about whether it's doable.

Out of curiosity, what it the reason Adobe makes this hard? I gues they have  to draw the line somewhere, but that seems an odd place to do it.

Again thank you.

[Bernd Alheit]

"Out of curiosity, what it the reason Adobe makes this hard? "

Adobe want sell Adobe Acrobat.

[try67]

In the past saving filled-in forms in Reader was not possible, either, nor embedding images, etc., unless you applied special rights to the file first.

Adobe is slowly enabling various features in Reader without having to apply those rights, but it's a long process, and their main goal is still to sell copies of Acrobat. However, I think they understand that in order to do that they have to offer a free viewer that has some basic capabilities (hence the Reader model).

So it might happen in the future, although I don't think it's a major roadblock for 99% of users, unlike being able to save a filled-in form, which was a major problem for a long time.