[SOLVED] difficulty opening PDF originally opened with Acrobat

Recently I upgraded to a 64 bit system for the first time
(I am still running Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon).

In the past I have installed Adobe Acrobat, but this time decided not to, partly because Acrobat for Linux seems so dated, and partly because the viewer included with the distro seemed better than in the past.

However today I needed to open one of a group of PDFs in my backups, and was surprised when it showed this message:

Please wait...
If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF
viewer may not be able to display this type of document.
You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac (and so on)

Is there a way to unlock these PDFs without reinstalling Acrobat?

Thanks

I have a similar problem opening pdf files in Linux Mint 18.1 although my symptoms are a little different. The problem is caused by a buggy package update in Linux Mint 18.1. Until the bug is fixed I use a work around. I right click on the pdf file, select "Open With", and select "Document Viewer".

I don't have the problem in Linux Mint 17.3.

-------------------------
Steve Stites

assumes the file is not damaged.


There was a problem with the very latest versions of pdf from Acrobat builds. There is some way to view what version that file is too to see.

Might try any of the other open sourced projects. http://www.tecmint.com/linux-pdf-vie...readers-tools/

Wonder if things like OpenOffice/LibreOffice can read.

Which program are you trying to open it with?

Also, search on the internet for the error message "eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document" (with the double quotes). The consensus appears to be that certain pdfs created with Adobe software cannot be read with any other reader, but you might find a work-around.

I tried:

MuPDF
Qpdfview
Xpdf
Evince

All produce the same unhelpful message. One work-around is straightforward: I have a laptop that I have not upgraded, that still has Acrobat for Linux installed; I also still have a computer that still dual-boots Windows (my secret shame).
Fortunately the documents in question aren't that important — I'll leave this thread open in case someone thinks of a more elegant solution.

so not all pdfs produce this message?

i recently read something about some type of pdf expansion that would allow one to edit documents (yes, pdfs) - long rant, it seems over the years there've been a lot of weird extra features that have long since been dropped again... it's possible that that's that what your pdf readers are having problems with.

alos, on linux, there's 2 or 3 different underlying libraries for reading pdfs - be sure to try with applications that use each of those (you know how to look at a package's dependencies?).

You could try the usuals that I do.

$ xpdf file.pdf
$ okular file.pdf
$ libreoffice file.pdf

Or the way I tend to print some of them.

$ identify file.pdf
(to see how many pages it has)
$ a2ps -a 1-1 -s 1 -R --columns=1 file.pdf -o page1.ps
$ a2ps -a 2-2 -s 1 -R --columns=1 file.pdf -o page2.ps
$ a2ps -a 3-3 -s 1 -R --columns=1 file.pdf -o page3.ps
$ gimp-2.8 page1.ps

But I edit the image to save ink or ONLY be B&W since I'm out of color ink. Not that any of these will help if it's an incomplete file or unsupported format.

All the programs I have tried
MuPDF
Qpdfview
Xpdf
Evince
and another, Inkscape

offer the same "Please wait" message. I believe that covers Fitz, poppler, and ghostscript libraries?
Given that the "Please wait" message is always encouraging me to upgrade to the latest version of Adobe, I'm assuming that this is some sort of Adobe password.

Whenever I get the "Please wait" message it is almost always because I am working with an dynamic XFA form. Master PDF Editor is the only Linux program I have found that can open these PDFs.

Master PDF Editor is proprietary software, but it is free for non-commercial use. Download the 64-bit deb for Ubuntu 14.x-16.x. from the website.

https://code-industry.net/free-pdf-editor/

Originally Posted by Brant Recently I upgraded to a 64 bit system for the first time (I am still running Linux Mint 18.1 Cinnamon). In the past I have installed Adobe Acrobat, but this time decided not to, partly because Acrobat for Linux seems so dated, and partly because the viewer included with the distro seemed better than in the past. However today I needed to open one of a group of PDFs in my backups, and was surprised when it showed this message: Please wait... If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document. You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac (and so on) Is there a way to unlock these PDFs without reinstalling Acrobat? Thanks

you should install acroread from adobe. whatever you can say acroread is the best of the best pdf viewer on linux.
Closed source vs Open source. Still try to use open source when you can.

Originally Posted by BenTrabetere because I am working with an dynamic XFA form.

this is what i was talking about earlier.
the rant was that this is a failed & outdated feature and should be buried deep.
obviously not very helpful if you have these pdfs, and need to look at them.

some sort of "transcoding" to get them into a sane format would be my suggestion, then cross your fingers and hope you never come across one of these again...

Originally Posted by BenTrabetere Whenever I get the "Please wait" message it is almost always because I am working with an dynamic XFA form. Master PDF Editor is the only Linux program I have found that can open these PDFs. Master PDF Editor is proprietary software, but it is free for non-commercial use. Download the 64-bit deb for Ubuntu 14.x-16.x. from the website. https://code-industry.net/free-pdf-editor/

And indeed, this program (I had never heard of it before) opens them up quite happily.
Thank you very much.

I never liked Acroread, in part because I found it very slow. I would only have reinstalled it under duress. After all, it seems clear that Adobe doesn't have much interest in supporting Linux — why risk moving more and more of my files into the orbit of a program that might fall by the wayside, and leave me locked out?

Another option that I've had no issues with opening XFA forms with is Okular from the KDE project. I've never had an issues opening any pdf's that contain XFA's with that.

Originally Posted by Timothy Miller Another option that I've had no issues with opening XFA forms with is Okular from the KDE project. I've never had an issues opening any pdf's that contain XFA's with that.

I have never been able to open dynamic XFA forms with Okular or any other viewer that uses Poppler. I can open AcroForms in Okular.

As I understand it, Poppler does not fully support XFA. I do not know how far the export extends, but my experience shows the support does not include dynamic forms.