[evince] what missing functionality is this document using?

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

[My first post to this list.  Thanks for Evince: I use it all the time!]

I'm trying to fill out this form.
<http://www.passport.gc.ca/form/pdfs/pptc054.pdf>

On page 5, there are things that look like blue buttons.
In Adobe Reader 9 on WinXP, they are blue buttons.
In Evince on up-to-date Fedora 14, they don't function.

The buttons images show up when Evince prints the document.  I don't know
if that is true for AR9.

1) what feature of PDF are these buttons using?  (Pure guess: JavaScript.)

2) is Evince (Poppler?) going to support this feature?

3) is there any way for a user to know that some feature of a document is
   not being rendered by Evince?
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Hi,

On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 5:26 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@...> wrote:
> [My first post to this list.  Thanks for Evince: I use it all the time!]
>
Thanks for using evince :)

> I'm trying to fill out this form.
> <http://www.passport.gc.ca/form/pdfs/pptc054.pdf>
>
> On page 5, there are things that look like blue buttons.
> In Adobe Reader 9 on WinXP, they are blue buttons.
> In Evince on up-to-date Fedora 14, they don't function.
>
> The buttons images show up when Evince prints the document.  I don't know
> if that is true for AR9.
>
> 1) what feature of PDF are these buttons using?  (Pure guess: JavaScript.)

Your pure guess is good, this doc has javascript and evince does not
currently support javascript
>
> 2) is Evince (Poppler?) going to support this feature?
>
We are trying to work on adding Javascript support with Ryan Lewis, so
hopefully in the future will be supported, but no promises of if of
when it will supported.

> 3) is there any way for a user to know that some feature of a document is
>   not being rendered by Evince?

The only way is the natural one, open the pdf with Evince and
acroread, I am not aware of any other method.


Greetings

José

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[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: "jose.aliste@..." <jose.aliste@...>

| On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 5:26 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@...> wrote:

| > I'm trying to fill out this form.
| > <http://www.passport.gc.ca/form/pdfs/pptc054.pdf>

| > 3) is there any way for a user to know that some feature of a document is
| >   not being rendered by Evince?
|
| The only way is the natural one, open the pdf with Evince and
| acroread, I am not aware of any other method.

I think that it would be good for evince to tell me that it isn't
doing something that the document specifies.  I quite understand not
implementing some features, but silently doing so isn't as good.

================

For the record, I'll document some problems I had trying to fill out
this government form.  (I mention "government" because I don't like
proprietary programs being forced on me by my government.)

The fonts in my Linux system must be a little different from those
that the pdf creator used: text didn't properly fit in boxes.  But
it was "close enough for government work" as they say.

One funny example: checked tick boxes looked like they had " marks
rather than check marks.  Today the passport officer did ask me about
that.

When I went to save the filled in form, I got a warning that the
form was encrypted and Evince refused to save it.  I sure would have
liked to know BEFORE I went to the work of filling it in.

(One reason that I had not used Adobe Reader to fill in the form was
because AR does not allow saving.  I hate starting from scratch
every time.)

I googled and found that this was a known limitation.
<https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/492959>
So I unencrypted the document:
        qpdf --decrypt original.pdf unencrypted.pdf

(If the original was encrypted, how come I could read it?  Is it
actually just authenticated with a cryptographic signature?  That
would make more sense.)

I then filled out the form again, starting from the unencrypted pdf.
I could save it!

I tried to view the filled in document with AR9 (on WinXP).  I wanted
to use the form's "validate and print" button to check my work.
But AR9 would not load the saved copy.  It said:

        This document enabled extended features in Adobe Reader.  The
        document has been changed since it was created and use of
        extended features is no longer available.  Please contact the
        author for the original version of the document.

Is this just a polite way of saying that this document was originally
signed and it isn't any longer?

Anyway, the upshot is that I cannot verify my work because Evince
doesn't implement JavaScript and AR9 doesn't like forms filled by
Evince.
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[Michael Chudobiak]

> For the record, I'll document some problems I had trying to fill out
> this government form.  (I mention "government" because I don't like
> proprietary programs being forced on me by my government.)

The Govt of Canada is generally pretty clueless about linux support.
However, if you submit questions to your MP about online govt tools that
don't work with linux, the heat does get put on the bureaucrats
(speaking from experience).

However, in this case, the passport office is being perfectly reasonable
in using a standard, documented feature of PDF (javascript), so it is
best to help get evince improved.


> The fonts in my Linux system must be a little different from those
> that the pdf creator used: text didn't properly fit in boxes.  But
> it was "close enough for government work" as they say.

File a bug upstream, with screenshots of the problem:
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=evince


> When I went to save the filled in form, I got a warning that the
> form was encrypted and Evince refused to save it.  I sure would have
> liked to know BEFORE I went to the work of filling it in.
...
> I googled and found that this was a known limitation.
> <https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/492959>
> So I unencrypted the document:
> qpdf --decrypt original.pdf unencrypted.pdf

Again, best to file a bug upstream, linking to the launchpad bug.


- Mike
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[James Cloos-9]

>>>>> "DHR" == D Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@...> writes:

DHR> I tried to view the filled in document with AR9 (on WinXP).  I wanted
DHR> to use the form's "validate and print" button to check my work.
DHR> But AR9 would not load the saved copy.  It said:

DHR> This document enabled extended features in Adobe Reader.  The
DHR> document has been changed since it was created and use of
DHR> extended features is no longer available.  Please contact the
DHR> author for the original version of the document.

DHR> Is this just a polite way of saying that this document was originally
DHR> signed and it isn't any longer?

The original pdf may have support which permits recent versions of AR to
save the filled out document.  If so, that would explain the error you
got from AR.

Since you used qpdf to decrypt it, you may want to take a look at the
results of qpdf's --qdf switch; you might be able to drop some objects
to get the form info a format which both AR9 and Evince like.

I took a look at such a pdf; grep for PPKLite in the qdf version to
check whether it is and AR-savable form.

-JimC
--
James Cloos <cloos@...>         OpenPGP: 1024D/ED7DAEA6
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