Support forms/interactive documents

[BuZZ-dEE]

It would be great, if it would be possible to fill interactive PDF documents in SumatraPDF.

[bigretromike]

I would like to see that too - It would be great to not install adobe readers just because there is soo little PDF readers that support XFA-based PDF forms

[yoflippo]

I would like to see this too. It's a common thing and sadly the only reason I am still using acrobat.

[szlovak]

Some basic support for XFA that enables at least opening documents is a must. For now I had to install Adobe. I'm afraid this problem will grow with time.

[bigretromike]

again, adding this would make sumatra real alternative for adobe acrobat in business and home environments

[rodneyrod]

Has any progress been made on this yet?

[coffeehabit]

My state's tax form uses . . . wait for it . . . forms :(

[bladeSk]

Evince supports forms. Perhaps it could be used as an inspiration for the contributors. Or, at the very least, as a free/open-source alternative to Acrobat, until Sumatra has this.

[bigretromike]

@bladeSk thanks for alternative that support forms. As there is more and more malware that exploit Acrobat we prefer to use Sumatra, but few of our users need those forms support. Hope it will come some day to Sumatra

[jansenfuller]

I'm still suprised that two years later, there seems to have been no response or progress on this issue. It's hard to toute your open-source-ness to your D&D buddies when you can't use forms.

[TheSQLGuru]

Form filling in PDF files has become a standard and is widely used. PLEASE add support for them to Sumatra!

[metroid112]

Still waiting for this too. I hope this issue gets enough visibility to make an actual change eventually.

[bigretromike]

@kjk Any news ? This issue have so low number that is barely visible on issue list ;-)

[znd4]

I'd love to try to take a crack at this, but A -- this seems like a really large project, and B -- .h/.cpp files are scary.

[GitHubRulesOK]

Reason C = the dichotomy See the comment bigretromike makes above for using SumatraPDF in the first place. "As there is more and more malware that exploit Acrobat we prefer to use Sumatra"

Adding ANY programmable actions such as JavaScript (so many exploits its depreciating), Flash (so many exploits its depreciating), XFA forms (management using PDFs. 2010 proven to include in the wild, obfuscated JavaScript inside) Comments that can carry VBscript and more recently AutomaticActions (lets wait and see how many additional exploits appear beyond the initial POCs) opens up abuse of applications.

One reason I support SumatraPDF is that I DO use Acrobat Reader/Editor for commercial use (they can afford to insure me against exploits :-) but for private use I want a simple lightweight Reader product with minimal or NO hidden exploitable functions (use the latest pre-release to avoid JPG issues).

There are ways to circumvent most software, but less opportunities for SumatraPDF to be affected. AFAIK the last time SumatraPDF was listed on the exploit database was Sumatra 2.1.1/Mupdf 1.0 (and was fixed soon after that) there are a few known MuPDF exploits on Linux and some file format exploits that may cause cross platform problems, however using the latest pre-release should reduce the likelihood of exposed vectors

[bigretromike]

@GitHubRulesOK @zdog234 the end game for this is probably ask muPDF to add those, it been stated that sumatrapdf is based on muPDF and if muPDF will have functionality asked here and in other issues Sumatra will support them too.

[GitHubRulesOK]

AFAIK MuPDF will never open XFA files since they are internally an Adobe licensed format (a PDF can have them embedded similar to Universal 3D files)

For a description of how XFA files differ from a "Standard" PDF see Adobe description https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-reader/pdf-won-t-display-please-wait/td-p/4788543 and wiki article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFA

Here is the Foxit reader explanation http://www.quickpdflibrary.com/faq/if-this-message-is-not-eventually-replaced-by-the-proper-contents-of-the-document.php

Adobe has made the decision that since very few non-Adobe products support these special PDF files, that it is better to show this message -- and require the user to download Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat -- than it is to let the PDF viewer try to render the document. You might want to ask the user to Reader-extend the documents so that you can view it with Adobe Reader.

For browsers a background handover of the file is required "To use XFA-based PDF forms on Firefox and Chrome, perform the following steps to configure Firefox and Chrome to open PDFs using Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat."

In short this is also what a SumatraPDF installation does

1. Show the default messages
2. Allows you to open the file in Acrobat from the menu (allows you to open 3D or XFA files) when it sees Acrobat Reader installed on the same device during installation.

For the concluding comment on this format see https://github.com/sumatrapdfreader/sumatrapdf/issues/27#issuecomment-554624795

[kjk]

As I understand it, form support is not necessarily the same as XFA i.e. not all forms are XFA.

That being said, closing this under "no test document, no progress can be made".

If someone has PDF document with forms they want Sumatra to be able to fill, open an issue, attach the document and I can look into supporting filling forms for this specific document.

[kjk]

Support for filling forms is tracked in #1249