Unable to copy text field entries from user form submissions.

[kimberly99]

I created a fillable form that users download from our website and send back to us via email. When users save their entries and send it back, we need to be able to copy & paste their entries from form fields into our database fields. (This is a temporary fix while developers work on a permanent solution.)

We are only able to copy form text, but not form field entry text. I can't figure out what I am doing wrong.

Here are my document security settings. I am using Acrobat Pro DC. What am I missing?

[try67]

What's preventing you from doing it, exactly? Describe the actual nature of the problem, please.

[kimberly99]

Thank you for your response. Here's what's happening.

• User downloads PDF form from our website, fills out form, saves it, sends back to us.
• We receive the form via email and open in Acrobat Reader.
• We can see what the user entered.
• We cannot copy the text they entered.
• We can only copy the original form text.
• We cannot copy the data the user sent back to us in the form fields.

This only happens when I follow these steps to save the PDF form: File > Save as other > Reader extended PDF > Enable more tools

Right now, I have not been saving as reader extended PDF. Instead I just save the PDF. The problem with this is that when we receive the form back from the customer, the fields are live and we can inadvertently change entries when copying data from a field.

[gkaiseril]

Have you try to save the email attachments in a folder on your hard disk under unique names and then open Acrobat and use the "Prepare Forms" "More => Merge data files into spreadsheet"?

This should create a CSV file that can be opened in Excel or other spreadsheet program. It will contain the form field contents in tabular manner. The top row will have the field names. It should be possible to import the CSV or Excel data into an SQL database if the data is properly labeled. It cannot perform any updates though.

I can copy the data one field at time to word, but this is not very efficient.

ADBC has not been available for sometime. It would be better to use LIveCycle forms which can connect to SQL databases and perform edits and updates using the form or a modified version of the form which has the data connection and associated scripts.

Did you do any testing of your processing from start to finish?

[kimberly99]

Hi. It seems we are having multiple issues. But long story short, our processers do not have Acrobat. They have Acrobat Reader.