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After clicking on a passport application form on a government web site, the form opened as a PDF file within Google Chrome (the browser I was using). After saving said PDF to the Downloads section of my disc, I filled in the fields and Saved As (to the Downloads section) often.

Two days later, when I re-opened the PDF file, I find that all of the fields are completely empty, as if they'd never been filled in. It's not that they're there but in white ink and are exposed by highlighting or selecting; there's no discernible trace of any of the data I had entered. It's also not the case that I saved the file somewhere else; it was saved in Downloads. The Date Modified attribute even matches the time I last saved it. I've tried opening the file using Microsoft Edge, Adobe Reader, Internet Explorer, Opera Browser, and Reader (the "app") to no avail. Same empty form.

Is there any means of recovering the data that was entered in all the fields?

Is there any precautionary measure I should take in future so as not to lose data entered in a PDF form?

I'm very surprised that I've not seen this exact problem discussed anywhere else. I have seen plenty of discussions about entire PDFs being blank when opened but that is not my situation – the full government form is there to be seen, but not my entered data.

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  • Were you using Microsoft Edge to fill the downloaded form? If so, it seems that, obviously, Microsoft Edge does not save data with a locally opened form; try again using Adobe Reader XI or newer.
    – Max Wyss
    Jun 17, 2016 at 12:32
  • @MaxWyss - I retraced my steps. It was chrome not edge. Same story from you though? And i successfully tried saving data via adobe reader. There is still a great mystery as to why chrome would allow me to fill in a form and give no warning that it cannot be saved. It may be obvious to a web technologist, but not to a casual user.
    – Martin F
    Jun 17, 2016 at 21:00
  • I am not thaaat surprised, as the Chrome PDF viewer is pretty dumb. OTOH, it is smart enough to not change things it cannot deal with, which means when you display a smart PDF in the Chrome viewer, and then save it, the PDF remains fully functional. But with forms, it has its serious shortcomings.
    – Max Wyss
    Jun 18, 2016 at 7:29

1 Answer 1

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Following Max W's comments, I did some experimenting with attempting to enter form data on the PDF web page using different browsers.

Chrome 51 | Edge 25 | FF 44 | IE 11 | Opera 38 |
  yes     |   no    |  no   |  yes  |  yes     | Allows user to fill in form fields 
  no      |   --    |  --   |  yes  |  no      | Preserves field data on saving local file

My findings (tabulated above):

  • All browsers allow me to save the PDF locally.
  • Neither Edge nor Firefox allow fields to be filled in.
  • Both Chrome and Opera allow fields to be filled in (and filled-in forms to be printed) but both fail to save entered form data when the document is saved locally.
  • Only Internet Explorer both allows fields to be filled in and preserves entered form data when the document is saved locally.
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