PDF for Lawyers

Adobe's online form tool gets useful a new feature

Adobe has been developing some interesting online stuff (e.g. SendNow, which I've covered in a previous blog post). FormsCentral is an online tool that lets you build, distribute and collect forms (and form data). There are other folks who are doing online forms, most notably Google.

I've used Google's form tool and find it sufficient for basic needs. Where it (and I would guess other) online form tools fall completely apart is when it comes to gathering attachments along with a form.

Why would you gather attachments? Well, let's say you are an employer and you're using an online form to collect responses from potential employees. (Yes, a form can be used to accept applications. A form can be used to gather any responses or data.)

You can collect these kinds of responses using Google Docs' Form tool. But you can't collect PDF resumes or recommendation letters at the same time. Up until now Adobe's FormCentral tool didn't let you do that either. But today Adobe announced this new attachment feature as part of their FormCentral service.

I can see a law firm making use of this tool as a way of getting basic information from a new client (after some meaningful initial human contact, of course). And the feature that let's clients upload documents along with the information gathering might be useful too.

For more information about FormsCentral (as well as pricing) click here.

Circumventing the silly lockdown of PDF forms

My last post was about the frustration of encountering locked down PDF forms, especially those on government sites. The government purportedly posts these forms in order to help, but as we know the government isn't always here to help.

The obvious way to get around this problem is through so-called analog hole, which to me means printing the PDF form out and then scanning it back in. At that point it's obviously stripped of any restrictions. But what if you don't have a scanner handy? I was thinking about this when I encountered the last offending form, and wondering what would I do if I had to quickly circumvent a PDF form lockdown.

Eventually I thought of a quick way: fax the form to myself at my web-based fax service. The way my service works is that I simply attach the document I want faxed to an email sent to [faxnumber]@rcfax.com. Moments later I would get a PDF of the document, but stripped of the restrictions. Faxing the form to myself is essentially like scanning it, but the scanner is the fax service.

I realize that many people don't have web-based faxing, but they should if they deal at all with faxes. Traditional fax machines are way too limited (need paper, electricity and can only print faxes where you have them plugged in). Hopefully you don't have to deal with any faxes, but odds are you do. And so I hope you have a web-based fax service. If you do then remember that it might be your only way to liberate a needlessly encumbered PDF form.

For what it's worth, I use RingCentral's fax service. It's only $7.99/month for 500 pages. You can try them out for free for a short period to see if you like the service. I don't know of any other web-based fax service that's reliable and offers a lower price.

Problems with locked down PDF forms

Recently I was asked by a client to secure a state trademark in Louisiana. I googled the phrase 'louisiana trademark application form' and discovered this PDF form on the official Louisiana Secretary of State website. I figured at that point I was a skip and a jump away from quickly filling out the form for my client.

I was wrong.

The form seems to have security that prevents me from filling out the form, which is weird. Weirder still is that I can't use the Typewriter tool to fill in the form.  And even weirder is that my Typewriter tool is completely missing. And I don't mean the option of using it is grayed out. I mean, when I open that PDF form, all evidence of the Typewriter tool's existence is gone.

Sounds like an opening scene from The X Files, doesn't it?

The first time it happened I thought I had lost my mind. But then I realized it was only happening when I opened the one PDF file. I asked Rick Borstein, who works at Adobe and publishes the excellent blog Acrobat for Legal Professionals, about this situation.  He informed me that because the typewriter tool is considered an annotation, if a document is secured to disable commenting or annotating that would disable the Typewriter tool as well.

But my Typewriter tool wasn't just disabled, it was completely gone.

As to that point, Rick said that there was a bug in an earlier version of Acrobat 9 that would make the Typewriter tool disappear sometimes, if there was more than one window open. However, that was not my situation: (1) I have the latest version of Acrobat (9.4.0), and (2) I didn't have any other windows open when trying to use the typewriter with this PDF form. If you have the same problem with the form let me know in the comments.

Even if this form is only non-functional for certain versions of Acrobat, or only under certain conditions, it raises the question of whether forms put out for public use should ever be locked down. What's the point? Government agencies provide paper forms, and have for years. Are they worried that people will alter the paper forms? Perhaps, but it's no easier to alter a PDF form. 

I suspect the problem with government forms that are locked down occurs because some bureaucrat is afraid of what might happen if the form is used in a way that the agency doesn't approve of. Meanwhile, instead of the form being easy to fill out (or type onto), it becomes almost useless.

I say 'almost useless' because there is a workaround. First, I can print the form out and scan it back in, at which point I can do whatever I want with it. But what if I don't have a scanner? Well, I have a workaround for that too. But, I'll disclose that workaround tomorrow.

Until then, good luck with your form hunting; may Providence be kinder to you than it was to me.

Free PDF editor - can it really be useful?

I am not generally one to tout free or low-cost alternatives to Adobe Acrobat; today won't be an exception.  Nevertheless, there might be some point where you aren't at your computer (where hopefully you have a full version of Acrobat installed) and you need to make comments to a PDF.  In that case I can recommend that you try PDFVue (beta).  One person reports (on Twitter) that they use this program to fill out faxes that arrive in their office by email.  

So, if you find yourself in a MacGyver-esque situation then consider using PDFVue.  On the other hand, if you are frequently manipulating PDFs (and we hope you are), then stick to the full version of Adobe Acrobat.

Upcoming seminar on Acrobat - How to create forms

Rick Borstein and Mark Middleton putting on a free online seminar what will demonstrate the best ways of creating and using PDF Forms in the legal world.   The one hour seminar will focus on Acrobat 8, but most of the features will also work in Acrobat 7.  For more information about this August 9th event click here.

Civil Subpoena Form for Federal Court

If you need to fill out a subpoena form for use in a federal court proceeding, feel free to use this one.  I found it by simply searching online.  It has form fields, and even includes a place for a digital signature.  As much as I love digital signatures, I wouldn't use the digital signature in most cases because it looks strange to most people. 

Adobe adds bar codes to PDF forms

Interesting C/Net news article on Adobe's inclusion of bar-codes into PDF forms: "The technology, announced Monday, will allow faster processing of forms ultimately intended for printing. Early backers include the Internal Revenue Service, which will experiment with adding bar code capacity to several PDF-based tax forms this year." There is also a discussion of how bar-codes will facilitate electronic filing.

Here's a PDF form I'd like to fill out

This is a form that I'd like to have a good reason to fill out. I'd settle for being a good friend of someone who filled it out.

PDF forms for use with court filings

One of the great uses of Adobe Acrobat is the creation of forms. Acrobat lets you take any document and create form fields that you can fill out, save, and print. In other words, even if you have a paper form, you don't need a typewriter to fill it out. Just scan it and create form fields (using the form tool in Acrobat) and fill in as needed.

In litigation lawyers sometimes come across forms that need to be filled out. An example from federal court is the Civil Cover Sheet that must be filed along with any civil case. In Louisiana we are fortunate to have the Western District Court, whose website has several useful forms available in PDF format, including a Civil Cover Sheet.

If you don't have the full version of Acrobat then you can't save the form after you've filled it out, but at least you can fill it out (assuming that it is an "interactive" form, as the Western District of Louisiana court describes it). I don't see why a court would go through the trouble to put a PDF form online but not create the form fields so that the could be filled out, but then there are lot of things I don't understand.

Findlaw also has a great compilation of PDF forms for many federal and state courts. Check and see if there are forms for your state. Chances are they have some that you might find useful. If you want to find more forms just type "PDF court forms" into Google and see what's out there.

PDF Forms and XML

Interesting article by John Udell in Infoworld on Adobe's effort to fully integrate XML into the PDF format. The gist of the article is that Adobe's new Acrobat 6.0 is fully XML capable, which will mean that it is easier to move form data (from, say, tax returns) in and out of a PDF document. Even if you aren't intrigued by tech-arcana such as XML the article has a nice link to an interactive tax form, which includes the capability of handling digital signatures.