Losing editable fields after merging pdfs

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1

I am running into the same problem as this person:

I am trying to merge PDFs with editable fields. After merging, only the first page retains these fields, the other pages delete them entirely. Has anyone else come across this issue and found a fix yet?

2

Hello @asdf_fdsa!

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3

Hey, just in case someone else has this issue and digs this thread up:

I spoke with one of my company’s UIPath experts who explained that this is a bug in adobe acrobat, and the recommended solution is to print to pdf then merge.

Maybe in the future there will be a fix for this, but for now its better to avoid merging pdfs with editable fields.

4

Alternative solution:

A PowerShell script to automate the Print to Microsoft Print to PDF and save the pdf file.

function PrintToPDF {
   [CmdletBinding()]
    Param
    (
         [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=0)]
         [string] $SaveFolderPath,
         [Parameter(Mandatory=$true, Position=1)]
         [string] $Filepath
    )
 
       $VerbosePreference = "Continue"
       add-type -AssemblyName microsoft.VisualBasic
       add-type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
       $focus = 2000
           $FileToPrint = $Filepath
           $global:FilePath = Get-Item $Filepath
           $FileName = $global:FilePath.basename
       $SaveFileLocation = $SaveFolderPath + $FileName + '.pdf'
       Start-Process $FileToPrint -verb Print | out-printer -name "Microsoft Print to PDF"  
       start-sleep -Milliseconds $focus
       [System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait("{ENTER}")
       start-sleep -Milliseconds 500
       [System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait($SaveFileLocation)
       start-sleep -Milliseconds 500
       [System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait("{ENTER}")
       start-sleep -Milliseconds 2000
}

How to use it?

 PrintToPDF 'provide the folder path\' 'provide the full path for the pdf file that has form data in it'

Example:

PrintToPDF 'C:\Marian\data\' 'C:\Users\marian.platonov\Downloads\SampleMergeFormsFR\EN - Form_9821_EN.pdf'

After the PDF files are not having anymore any form fields as it was saved as print PDF file, you can merge the new PDF files with the Join PDF Files activity and the data will not be lost.