returned filled form came back with garbled text and fonts

Is there any chance that your client was on a Mac and using Preview to fill out the form? Most forms MUST be filled in Adobe Reader to correctly get at the data. I don't know how many times I have had arguements with Mac users that insist on using Preview rather than Reader.

Just a thought...

Clinton

What software did you use to create the form and what software did your client use to fill in the form. Clinton is correct that Mac Preview is often times to blame for corrupt forms, but its not the only culprit. You could try to extract. Just the form data in Acrobat ( see this article for more information: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/acrobat/X/pro/using/WSDD95883E-EB9B-409b-8C7C-33E0D
AE68FFE.html)
If you need just the data, then that may be all you need to do, if you need the filled out form, you can try to reimport this data into a new copy of the form.

Thank you for your answers. The form was created on Acrobat XI Pro from a PDF version of a WordPerfect document. Could that be the culprit-- WordPerfect? I am not sure what the client was using to fill out the form. But I checked the properties on the returned document and he was using an older version of Reader.

The tool you used to create the form is fine (Acrobat), the tool the user used to fill out the form is OK (even an older version of Reader as long as it does not reject the file right away because of incompatible features is fine), so the poblem must be with the software that initially created the PDF file. I assume it was created not with Adobe software, but exported from WordPerfect as PDF - or converted to PDF with non-Adobe software.

Do you still have WordPerfect on your system? If so, you can create a "good" PDF by printing to the Adobe PDF printer (which should be available when Adobe Acrobat is installed).

Have you had any luck with exporting/importing the comments?

Thank you again. Yes, the form was initially created on WordPerfect -- then "published to PDF" then it was created as a "fillable" form on Acrobat XI Pro.

If I understand you correctly, instead of "publishing" to PDF I should print to Adobe PDF? Then use Acrobat to create the form?

Unfortunately, as you can see, I am a noobie at this and no, I have never exported data -- but I did read your link.

Yes,
.
Print using the Adobe PDF printer.
.
That'll yield a proper PDF.
.
Be well...

You export data by opening your form, then go to Tools>Forms>More Forms Options>Export Data.

You will have the choice of four different formats: FDF, XFDF, XML and text files. You can also select to merge one or more files into a spreadsheet (actually, a CSV file, but that will open in e.g. Excel).

To import data, you would use Tools>Forms>More Forms Options>Import Data (again, with different options).

So, try to export the data as e.g. text and see if you can actually read the contents of the file. If that does not work, then the data in your file is corrupt, and you don't have much hope to recover it.

Thank you for all your help, but unfortuantely the form came back as a non-form PDF and data could not be exported. Could this be a product of the "fill and save" option?