Ahh, the PDF. It’s cool, it’s portable, it looks the same everywhere. You can create forms in it, you can put your content out there while protecting it simultaneously. It’s great.
Unless.
So we work hard on creating a PDF version of a standardized form we, and all of our customers use. You can enter information in it via Acrobat Reader 4+ and it’s just cool. But what happens if you get halfway though the 3 page form and need to stop for a while, to continue later? You can’t. Sorry kids.
Adobe has this dogma of “Reader READS, that is ALL. If you want to SAVE a form, you need Acrobat” which is impractical, not to mention just plain stupid. I can’t believe nobody else has noticed this and their stock price hasn’t suffered.
To truly be useful, Reader should be able to Save copies of PDFs with user information plugged into the form fields. You’re NOT editing the file, you idiots. You’re making use of a valuable feature that the form’s provider has ALREADY PAID FOR. If you want to change the non-form parts, sure, get Acrobat. If you want to continue filling out the form offline, in your pajamas, at home? Reader should do it. I can’t wait until someone comes along and offers that feature in their reader software. I’d pay 10x as much for the creation program if the matching reader offered the simple ability to make use of the feature as is simply assumed.