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Am I the only one who hates these fake PDFs? (eclecticlight.co)

submitted 1 year ago by bazmatazable@reddthat.com to c/foss@beehaw.org

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I was forced to fill out an XFA form (that was pretending to be a PDF) from the Canadian government and the experience left me feeling completely subjugated. The lengths that Adobe go to to make sure that you have the most frustrating experience possible is unbelieveable. Searching for alternatives or help leads you to either: be forced to buy their premium software (or a licensed equivalent) or subscribe for Adobe's online tools. Why is this propriety format allowed in government forms? What is so fantastic/irreplaceable about this format?

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[–] imaradio@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I have a form like this I do regularly for work. I actually fax the form, I don't even send it electronically. But I like to fill it electronically so I have my records on the computer. Because it is 2023. I had to use my home computer (linux) to generate a copy of the form, then use a floss editor I managed to get working on windows work computer to annotate on top of the form fields. For some reason it's really hard to get the annotations to line up with the form fields. So sometimes I have to correct it by hand after printing to clarify.

It is a zero security form, there is no need to have all this rigamarole. The form is freely available on the internet and anyone with a fucking fax machine could fill it in and send it on behalf of anyone else. Fax machine is the biggest hurdle; who the hell has one of those.

[–] MangoKangaroo@beehaw.org 1 points 1 year ago

This probably isn't the case in all places, but basically all of the libraries in my area have a fax machine that you can use. A godsend when your only choice is either a fax or a web submission that may or may not work properly.