To think printers are obsolete? And to be IRRITATED!

[VioletBam]

I've just tried to fill in an "Interactive Form" sent to me by a school I want one of the DC to attend next year.

We're not in the UK.

The form is PDF which can't be filled in and saved...there's no submit button and I don't have a printer! On the form, there's no way to save as....so I can't fill it in, save it as a document or image...and then send it...I'd have to print and scan it.

I never use a printer! I don't own or generally need a printer!

WHY are things still done this way? It seems so old fashioned to print things out and then scan them back.

Like a bloody fax or something!

[RebootYourEngine]

I use my printer quite a lot. Dont know how i would get on without it.

Could you fill it in and then post it rather than scan it?

[SpuriouserAndSpuriouser]

I know exactly what you mean, I don't own a (functioning) printer and things like this make my heart sink. I always print them at work but it seems like a waste of paper when it could be so easily done on a computer.

[Anonymouses]

You should be able to grab a pdf editor to allow you to edit then save and attach to an email.

[mathanxiety]

I know I have done something like Anonymouses' suggestion in the past. I can't remember exactly how.

Sorry, not very helpful....

[pearlylum]

I use my printer a great deal- maybe 100 A4 pages a day.

[Ifailed]

you can open PDF documents and edit them in Word

[Silvercatowner]

you can open PDF documents and edit them in Word if it is simple text then yes. Word doesn't cope well with boxes and images.

[Ifailed]

^, agree, but it's worth a try?

[OnionKnight]

I work for a massive local authority and I can't remember the last time that I printed something off.

After our last home printer died we didn't bother to replace it.

[SpaceKablooie]

We have a printer, and use it infrequently for important things. It takes up a lot of space per use though.

[Enkopkaffetak]

Print of daily at work. not a lot at home. However dh has just bought a new printer as he feels he needs it for his work stuff

[NicknameUsed]

Wait until you have teenagers, then you will use the printer a lot.

I lost count of the number of practice GCSE papers that I printed off for DD this year. She found that it was much easier to do them from a hard copy than using a screen. Also, I could remove any "help" out of her reach.

[NeedMoreSleepOrSugar]

As pp have said there are pdf editors you can download- I've used xodo and officesuite+ in the past for example. Just Google "free pdf editor". Or ask the school to email you an editible version?

[bakeoffcake]

Could you copy the document and save onto a word document?

[DrDreReturns]

I hate printers - they always seem to go wrong or need a cartridge replacing. I will always do things digitally if possible and organisations should make it as easy as possible for people to do this.
I very rarely print anything at work.

[2016Blyton]

I often print 500 pages a day. It just depends what work you do actually.

Court forms are exactly as you describe and it's really really irritating. You have to fill out print scan and send to a client (but as people say above there are product available - I don't do it enough to bother to have looked for one)

My printer certainly takes up a lot of space but I am printing just about evey 20 minutes all day long. Upstairs the teenagers hvae one too which is laser colour (mine is just laser black and white) and they do use it to print out homeworks etc. every few days and it's useful for me to know there is a second back up one in the house.

[KP86]

Not RTFT yet, but if you print it as a PDF (download a free PDF printer if you're not on a Windows OS that has it includes) it will be a PDF and able to be emailed as is. Doesn't help if you are required to sign the form but useful otherwise.

[cexuwaleozbu]

I've had to do this in the past. If your IT skills are up to it:

Use screen grabs from the empty PDF form to get a picture file version of each page of the form. (You can zoom in and stitch together multiple screengrabs to get a decent resolution, or you can get a high resolution grab in a single screen grab if you can fool your pc into thinking the screen is massive)

Create a ms word doc, and import the image of each page, one per page obviously. For each image set the image size to 297mm x 210mm, the position to be 0mm from top and 0mm from left, set wrap text to "behind text" and ensure that "move with text" is unticked.

You can now use ms word to complete the form - obviously there's a bit of a faff to get the cursor in the right place (you can use tables with borders set to invisible if that helps.

When ready you can save it as a PDF.

[VioletBam]

Thanks for the advice all. I ended up downloading something called Cute something or other which is a virtual printer!

I pressed "Print" and that let me save the whole thing as a doc!

Bloody genius!

[Andrewofgg]

My work and one of my home activities require careful proofreading which I cannot and will not do on a screen. I want paper which I can mark up and I am far less likely to miss things that way.

[VioletBam]

Andrew I hope you don't think I'm rude but are you over 50?

[Lules]

I am lot under 50 and I still print stuff off if I need to proof read it properly. I tell my students to too. It's a lot easier for your eye to skip over something on a screen. However the form example you've had would piss me off a lot.