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J
James_Naish_Architect
Participating Frequently
October 22, 2016
Question

PDF text blocks are overlaid with a blue box so I cannot see the text unless I click on it. Why?

  • October 22, 2016
  • 1 reply
  • 6039 views

I have opened a PDF form and although I have filled it in, the text boxes are now blocked out with a blue block.  Only when I click on each block can I see the text below, but the others are still blocked out.

I also cannot open Mac Preview created PDF's.

My view of Adobe has plummeted...the website help is useless.

This topic has been closed for replies.

1 reply

G
George_Johnson
Inspiring
October 22, 2016

Can you post a screen shot that demonstrates this blue block?

Regarding the Preview created PDFs, exactly what happens when you try? Can you open them in Preview?

J
James_Naish_ArchitectAuthor
Participating Frequently
October 22, 2016

Hi George. Screenshot attached.  The blue blocks are the highlighted text recognition but I can’t see the text that is in them…only when I click on them as in the ‘Works” text block as shown.  The form is completely filled in and I was trying to get the signature added when it all went wrong.  Preview will now open it but you can't add signatures with it and the only way to get a new text box was to use Wondershare PDF Editor pro but that doesn't allow for signatures either.

G
George_Johnson
Inspiring
October 23, 2016

If the text show up when one of the fields receives the focus, I have to think that the form was filled-in and saved using Preview, since that it by far the most common cause of this problem. Preview has lousy support for PDF forms and it should never be used to work with them since it corrupts them in a number of ways when it saves.

You can check this by selecting: File > Properties > Description > PDF Producer

If that's not it, I'd have to look at the form to say what's wrong. My advice is not to use anything but Acrobat when creating a form and tell all of your users not to use Preview to work with a PDF form.

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