Missing characters, empty fields or even blank page in Adobe Forms

[VXLozano]

Case review

An Adobe Forms test appears blank in one or more of the languages you've translated it to, but you know it's properly build and it works. After the whole search & try process, you've tried:

• to translate it via SE63


• to translate it via SFP


• to NOT translate it (just copy the XML from the original language to the target one)


• to edit the XML and remove all the XIFF (or whatever) appearances; the tool will re-create them


• to export the XML, delete the form, and create again importing the XML


• to re-build the form from scratch

And nothing worked. You've sent your resumé to another company because you want not to face that form again, you've practiced yoga and meditation (toguether) to survive to your stress, you ate all your nails and you are really thinking about a re-orientation in your career (I'd be a very nice taxi driver).

Then you notice the languages which the form fails are Polish and Romanian, so...

What if it's the font?

You rush to your SFP editor, select all the fields and change their Myriad Pro font (that's alleged to support any character set, even PL and RO) with Arial (same alleged support, but...).

You run your test program and voilà, the form is there. All the fields in all their glory are there. But... some characters are missing.

So it's the font. Now you must find a font that really supports special PL and RO characters.

WRONG!!

Try this: from your preview use the SAVE button, go to your desktop (yes, I know you save your dummy fields there, you sinner) and open it.

The form is flawless.

You revert your "fix", and put the fields again in the bloody Myriad Pro font. Empty preview. Save (yes, to the desktop). Open it. It's there. All that nasty text is there. All those curious characters are there. All your nails... are gone, you chewed them long time ago, and before reading this blog post you were thinking about the toe ones.

So...

The problem is the PDF preview tool.

I didn't find the way (yet?) to fix it, and I'm not sure about how to proceed from now. I use a different preview tool than my users (not sure why, maybe because I have the Livecycle or whatever its name is installed), so maybe they will see the form fine.

Concussion

It's what you have after been hitting your head to that idiotic wall that is a non-properly working previewer tool.

I know this post is almost useless. I know you had no interest in the information posted here. But I spent (no, I wasted) a week reading the Q&A and the Adobe community forums, doing tests, rebuilding that form and chewing my nails.

And maybe, just maybe, you are here because you were searching the web about "blank adobe forms" and reading this you can prevent your nails to disappear. Who knows. I don't.