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In the program I'm working in, a PDF form is used as a template to generate reports. Once we're done filling in all the information using ABCPDF, the PDF is flattened and then attached to an email. When the final form of the PDF is opened in Adobe Reader, everything looks fine. Then, when Reader is closed, it asks if you'd like to save the changes you've made.

Why does this happen when no changes have been made since opening the file in Reader? My one guess is that it assumes a form with filled-in fields has changes in it.

Sam Erwin
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It seems to me that your files are getting corrupt at some point in your workflow. When Acrobat Reader loads a file, and it finds invalid structures in it, it tries to "repair" the file by reading whatever can be read from it, then it prompts the user for saving the "repaired" version.

yms
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  • That's interesting. How would I verify that this is actually what's happening? – Sam Erwin Apr 24 '13 at 18:22
  • That part is tricky... you could try opening the file with other viewers, maybe some of them will fail with some meaningful error message, or if you have Acrobat Professional you could use its "preflight" verification tool. – yms Apr 24 '13 at 18:24
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    Couldn't it also be that the NeedsAppearances is set, appearance streams are generated, and the reader wants to save them? IMO one cannot say without inspecting a sample file. – mkl Apr 24 '13 at 18:43
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    Turns out, yms, you are definitely correct. The file was getting corrupted because our program was stamping each field on the form individually as we filled them in. I switched it to stamping the entire form and, voila, no more corruption. – Sam Erwin Apr 24 '13 at 18:45