Adobe sign, broken SIGNED pdf

[Espantapájaros Music]

I´ve sent some document for signing.

Once signed, I tried to download them (as 1 Pdf o individually), but one of them seems to be broken, all pdf´s original layer is missing, I can only see the signatures and some data, but not the entire document. This is not the first time this happens to me, but this documents are really important.

Tried downoading them from acrobat and from the web, neither option is good.

The rest of the documents are OK, but this one cant download properly.

Help please!

[MikelKlink]

Is there something special about that PDF? E.g. was it damaged? Or did it contain some proprietary protection? Or was it a XFA form? ...

[Espantapájaros Music]

Nothing special about it, I sent 4 pdf in the same signature request, and that only one can only be retireved broken, the other 3 are OK, as well as the .word docs included.

[Espantapájaros Music]

Note: the 4 pdf sent are the same, just different info on them.

[MikelKlink]

That appears to indicate that there is something fishy with the pdf causing the issue. Can you share it for analysis?

[Espantapájaros Music]

Yes sure. This is the file (the only one) that got corrupted in the process of signing and that cannot be downloaded.

[MikelKlink]

This is the file (the only one) that got corrupted in the process of signing and that cannot be downloaded.

Ok, this PDF makes use of a very special technique to fill in a scanned form -- for each field it shows the text using text rendering mode 7 ("Add text to path for clipping") and then draws a bitmap that is dark inside the field and white outside. The clip path being the outline of the text will cause only the text to show.

This technique may cause troubles in viewers not supporting PDF fully. And it makes the size of the file explode.
Nonetheless, this is (at first glance) valid PDF, so unless Adobe Acrobat Sign in its requirements explicitly disallows constructs like that, it should be able to cope with the PDF.
You say that this is the only file with such issues. Are there similar files working fine? Or is this the only one of that kind?

[Espantapájaros Music]

Thanks for your responde Mikel. Very clear.

Indeed the are several files (Exact SAME file with different info on the fields) on the same signature request, and the other ones retrieved just fine. That´s what makes it so annoying.

[MikelKlink]

Ok, I'll have a closer look at the file internals later this week; maybe there still is something special to be found.