I've encountered a PDF forms file that Okular cannot handle properly. I don't know whether this rises to the level of a bug, but it is at least a deficiency, and I thought your team should know about it. I prefer to use Okular whenever possible, but in this case I was forced to install and use Acroread.

The file is

http://medicorcancer.com/wp-content/upl ... Office.pdf

I scroll down four pages to the "Medical Questionaire", click "Show forms", and enter data. Then I click "Hide forms". The data I entered should then appear, properly formatted for printing. Instead, the data fields are blank. Only the checkbox entries are shown. When I save the filled-in pdf to a print file, the entries are missing. When I save the pdf, close okular, open okular and reload, the fields are blank. Okular does retrieve the data when I click "Show forms", but that doesn't help the recipient of the filled-in pdf!

Here are the pdf attributes, according to acroread and okular

PDF Producer: Nuance PDF Create 8
PDF Version: 1.5 Acrobat 6.x)
Tagged PDF: No
Fast Web View: No
Doc assembly, commenting, signing, templating: Not allowed

We've been discussing the problem in the OpenSuSE forum.. E.g.: https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread. ... ost2621655

Although Acroread works in this case and gets my form entries to the postscript file, in general I prefer Okular. Acroread gives me no way to save my entries: If I make a mistake or omit something from the printed copy, I have to re-enter everything. Okular does save what I have entered, so I can close the file and reopen it and make corrections.

Second, Okular gives me the ability to turn a postscript print-out file back into a PDF. Once I get my entries to appear in the print-out, I can use Okular to create a new and permanent PDF with the entries included. So -- thanks for the great software!

Can you please provide the full version of Poppler in use on your system (from the RPM package)?

Here's the information:

Code: Select all

Information for package libpoppler34:
-------------------------------------
Repository: openSUSE-12.3-Oss
Name: libpoppler34
Version: 0.22.1-1.1.1
Arch: i586
Vendor: openSUSE
Installed: Yes
Status: up-to-date
Installed Size: 3.6 MiB
Summary: PDF Rendering Library
Description:
Poppler is a PDF rendering library, forked from the xpdf PDF viewer
developed by Derek Noonburg of Glyph and Cog, LLC.

S | Name                     | Summary                                               | Type   
--+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------+--------
  | libpoppler-cpp0          | PDF Rendering Library                                 | package
  | libpoppler-devel         | PDF rendering library                                 | package
  | libpoppler-glib-devel    | PDF rendering library - GLib Wrapper                  | package
i | libpoppler-glib8         | PDF Rendering Library - GLib Wrapper                  | package
i | libpoppler-qt4-4         | PDF Rendering Library - Qt4 Wrapper                   | package
  | libpoppler-qt4-devel     | PDF rendering library - Qt4 Wrapper                   | package
i | libpoppler34             | PDF Rendering Library                                 | package
i | poppler-data             | Encoding Files for use with libpoppler                | package
i | poppler-tools            | PDF Rendering Library Tools                           | package
  | python-poppler           | Python bindings for the Poppler PDF rendering library | package
  | typelib-1_0-Poppler-0_18 | PDF Rendering Library - Introspection bindings        | package


Does that help?

If you open the file in Okular, after opening Okular in a terminal, is anything relevant output to the console?

The first time I ran okular from the terminal I received a series of samba messages, but I was unable to reproduce these messages by restarting okular or even by logging off and back on, so they do not appear to be relevant. Okular itself produces no messages, and, as our discussion at the OpenSuSE site determined, works correctly with other pdf's.

So we know that there is something about the pdf I cited above that is handled properly by acroread but not by okular.

I see, this morning, that an update for libpoppler34 libpoppler-glib8 libpoppler-qt4-4 poppler-tools has just now become available. Should I apply this update? The update may fix the above problem, but in that case we will lose the opportunity to reproduce the problem and diagnose it properly.

Poppler is the library used by Okular do render and manipulate PDF files - so yes, this update could possibly impact on this.

Please see viewtopic.php?f=251&t=111427&p=292336#p267603

Your link doesn't work so I can't check if I get a warning for your PDF file.

I applied the poppler updates, but the problem remains. Okular gives no indication that the pdf is problematic, and no console messages are generated. But the entered form data is still inappropriately hidden.

I have read the forum thread you cited -- it's the first thing I read, actually.



I'm sorry about the bad link. Here is what I used myself to get to the problem pdf several days ago:

http://medicorcancer.com/document-downloads/

I selected the second (office visit) pdf, and that took me to the download link I supplied above:

http://medicorcancer.com/wp-content/upl ... Office.pdf

However, I see now that the direct link is rejected. Apparently we have to go through the document-downloads gateway page.

There seems to be a second problem with the above pdf. When I print the completed form to a file and then use Okular to import the .ps file as a .pdf, many of the pages are blank or missing altogether. Pages are also blank or missing when I use Okular to view the .ps file directly.

When I print the seven page section (pages 4 through 10) as seven separate one-page files, Okular will view each file (and page) correctly. But when I print the seven pages as a single file, Okular stops after page 1 or leaves pages 3, 4, 5 and 7 blank.

I use acroread to print the pages, since Okular loses my data. I've tried several acroread print options -- using language level 2, omitting oriental fonts. Same result.

One print option does work -- saving the seven-page form as an image file .ps. Okular is then able to read all seven pages of the .ps file.

This continues for me: when I disable the ability to modify forms, everything that I have entered into those forms except the checkboxes disappears.