PDF saved forms are not compatible with Adobe Reader

[Simon Déziel]

When editing and saving the PDF form available at http://www.oiq.qc.ca/Documents/DAP/permis/formulaire_inscription_examen_prof-fr.pdf, the resulting PDF is not open-able in Adobe Reader X (10.1.1).

When trying to open the document with Adobe Reader X under Windows 7, I get the following error :

"There was an error opening this document. There was a problem reading this document (14)."

The edited PDF form is attached to this bug.

$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 11.04
Release: 11.04

$ apt-cache policy evince
evince:
  Installed: 2.32.0-0ubuntu12.3
  Candidate: 2.32.0-0ubuntu12.3
  Version table:
 *** 2.32.0-0ubuntu12.3 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.32.0-0ubuntu12 0
        500 http://ca.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main amd64 Packages

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: evince 2.32.0-0ubuntu12.3
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-13.52-generic 2.6.38.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-13-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
Date: Mon Nov 28 12:50:22 2011
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature_: Ubuntu 2.6.38-13.52-generic 2.6.38.8
SourcePackage: evince
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Simon Déziel (sdeziel)]

I forgot to mention but the resulting edited PDF form opens and displays properly with Evince itself.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

This issue also affects acroread 9.4. I get the same error opening the attached form, in Comment #1:

$ apt-cache policy acroread
acroread:
  Installed: 9.4.6-0maverick1
  Candidate: 9.4.6-0maverick1
  Version table:
 *** 9.4.6-0maverick1 0
        500 http://archive.canonical.com/ maverick/partner i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

$ apt-cache policy evince
evince:
  Installed: 2.32.0-0ubuntu1.2
  Candidate: 2.32.0-0ubuntu1.2
  Version table:
 *** 2.32.0-0ubuntu1.2 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-updates/main i386 Packages
        500 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick-security/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.32.0-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ maverick/main i386 Packages

I experienced the issue when filling in US Tax forms - sample:
<http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf>
Opened first in acroread & filled in form data. Later opened with Evince, changed some of the form data, did a 'Save as' - file saved. File opens fine in Evince, but attempting to reopen the file in acroread 9.4.6 (and Adobe Reader 9.4 - Windows) results in the error message:
"There was an error opening this document. There was a problem reading this document (14)."

This is a serious issue as Evince corrupts valid PDF files & afterwards the file cannot be shared with others that may not have Evince (i.e., Windows users with Adobe Reader).

[Vadim Rutkovsky (roignac)]

Reproduced in evince 3.2.1 and acroread 9.4.6 in 11.10

[NoOp (glgxg)]

So we're confirmed & established that evince corrupts data (valid .pdf files)... unfortunately evince is embedded in ubuntu-desktop:

$ sudo apt-get purge -s evince
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  evince* ubuntu-desktop*
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Purg ubuntu-desktop [1.207]
Purg evince [2.32.0-0ubuntu1.2]

[NoOp (glgxg)]

With the US Tax season less than two weeks away, I can only wonder how many tax pdf forms will get mangled by Evince in the process. It's obvious that the Evince maintainers do not consider this issue as critical... Can someone with authority *please* bump this issue up to 'Critical' and assign a developer to review/resolve?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. The issue you are reporting is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug to the developers of the software by following the instructions at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME. If you have done so, please tell us the number of the upstream bug (or the link), so we can add a bugwatch that will inform us about its status. Thanks in advance.

[Fabiodurso (fabiodurso)]

Created attachment 60486
Original document

When editing and saving the PDF form available at http://www.oiq.qc.ca/Documents/DAP/permis/formulaire_inscription_examen_prof-fr.pdf, the resulting PDF is not open-able in Adobe Reader X (10.1.1).

When trying to open the document with Adobe Reader X under Windows 7, I get the following error :

"There was an error opening this document. There was a problem reading this document (14)."

(from https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince/+bug/897322)

[Fabiodurso (fabiodurso)]

Created attachment 60487
Proof-of-concept patch

I'm attaching a proof-of-concept patch that seems to fix the issue.
It outputs a XRef stream (instead of a table) if the newest XRef is a stream (as it's the case with this document).
I couldn't find in the PDF specs the reason why it works.

[Fabiodurso (fabiodurso)]

*** Bug 38761 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Fabiodurso (fabiodurso)]

Fixed in 0.19.4
(commit b1d5c6c0a20a4a24b42de66db23e0f63d10ca52d)

[bitinerant (bitinerant)]

I was hit by this today. I completed an important applicatoin form with Evince 3.4.0, verified that it looked correct (in Evince), and submitted it via email only to hear back that the administrators (presumably using Windows and Adobe Reader) were unable to open it.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

@Sebastien re comment #8: Let me see if I have this correct - Ubuntu package and provide Evince via the "Main" repository.
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evince

Last I looked, this means that the software is "Officially supported" and distributed by Ubuntu:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Repositories/Ubuntu

Ubuntu users have already taken time to report and add comments to this bug report. I suggest that it's time that the maintainers of the application:
====
Package information

Maintainer:
    Ubuntu Developers
====

report and/or deal with any upstream issues.

"It would be nice" if the application maintainer(s) did the simple test of opening a PDF form (<http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf works just fine), in Evince, fill in the form (or at least parts of it), save the form, and attempt to open the saved form in acroread, Adobe Reader, Adobe Acrobat, etc. Simple, not difficult to do, and *then* the package maintainer(s) - those who understand the development & packaging of Evince - file a report upstream. Thank you.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Upstream:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=668791
Bug 668791 - PDF created by evince unreadable in other pdf viewers

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thanks

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Sebastien: This may have been fixed in poppler 0.19.4, see
https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=49080
[PDF file modified by poppler is not compatible with acroread]

Poppler stable 0.20 was released <http://poppler.freedesktop.org/> on May 10, 2012. Do you know if there is a ppa version that I can test with?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Not sure if poppler 0.20 is available for testing

the commits that seems to fix the issue are:
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/poppler/poppler/commit/?id=2ecf3b2e49a4c35e995d25016b810592260edfeb
http://cgit.freedesktop.org/poppler/poppler/commit/?id=b1d5c6c0a20a4a24b42de66db23e0f63d10ca52d

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the issue is fixed in the current poppler version

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Any estimate for how long before this is also available in 12.04?

[NoOp (glgxg)]

Precise 12.04 LTS?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

@NoOp: no estimation no, december has been a quiet month with the holidays so it should be better soon to see activity, if anyone wants to give a try at backporting that fix please do though

[NoOp (glgxg)]

With US Tax season in full swing I found that the Ubuntu 12.04 Acroread & Evince versions cannot display the checkbox tickmarks in the fillable tax forms & therefore making it impossible to use Ubuntu for filling out the forms:

<http://www.irs.gov/Forms-&-Pubs>

Typical form:
<http://www.irs.gov/file_source/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf>

I had no such issues with Acroread 9.5.4 and Evince 3.4.0 in Fedora 17... Two years is long enough, so I've given up waiting & switched to Fedora.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

The Precise Pangolin has reached end of life, so this bug will not be fixed for that release