Often I need to fill out a PDF form and to email this filled-out PDF back to the sender. I see Okular has the ability to insert notes, lines, mark things with a highlighter, etc, but it does not have the simple ability to write text. I don't want to write notes with frames, just to write simple text, and to know that the person viewing the PDF will see what I wrote without first having to enable some sort of review-mode. If this is possible, please explain how. If it is not, please consider this a feature request.
I don't understand what you mean. Can you please be more clear? Maybe a screenshot/drawing?
Sure. I want to write on this PDF. No frames, no background color, just plain text. http://i.imgur.com/icFhJxy.png
Just fill in the form?
And how do I do that?
View -> Show forms
Created attachment 88343 [details] "Show forms" unavailable
xournal and scribus let me write text on the form no problem. The only way to write text in Okular is using "inline notes" which is horrible because: 1- every note has a frame around it, no way to disable it, 2- every note has a yellow background, 3- change one note's font or background color - settings not remembered for new notes. 4- the notes are not saved "File > Save Copy As". To make sure the person I'm sending the PDF to sees the text, I have to Print > Print to PDF, which is a hack not a proper solution.
Ok, i hoped you would have thought of this by yourself, but attach the file, otherwise we can't do any magic. And yeah, don't do "File > Save Copy As" do "File > Save As", the "Copy" part means you don't want the modifications
While I have no problem sending the file, a simple writing tool should be available for any PDF, not just ones with forms, just like the inline text annotation tool is, but without the frame or background color, and with a way to remember font style and size. It might be a good choice to rename "Save Copy As" to "Save Original As".
Created attachment 88344 [details] Sample document where Show Forms is unavailable
Forms are unavailable because that document is wrongly created and does not state any form. 1. Open a wish for that 2. Well, you always need a default, no? 3. That's what the annotation editor in the settings is for, you want it to be white by default, change it. All in all i don't see the need for this bug, you should create a new one for 1) though.
One should be able to simply write text on any PDF. Don't care how it's formatted, I'm not going to report every unsupported PDF. Other software can do it (to the same PDF I sent you), Okular can do more advanced things, why should it not do this simple thing. That's what this report is for, to simply write text on a PDF. No frames, no background colors, no decorations, just text. "3. That's what the annotation editor in the settings is for, you want it to be white by default, change it." I don't want it to be white, I want it to not have a background color or frame at all. Just text.
Then edit the subject properly, you don't want to fill out forms, you want to add text randomly.
I think we maybe had a misunderstanding due to pragmatics. That kind of document is called a form in non-programmer English. I don't know anything about what constitutes a form in the PDF specification, I was using the general English definition of that kind of page. It might as well have been a PDF of a purple elephant, I still want to be able to write simple text :)
Ok, you win, you are right and i'm wrong.