Increasing the size when unlocking

Question

Is unlocking the pdf form with Reader Extensions server going to increase the size of the form
I had a PDF form with size 1 MB
After enabling reader extensions it became 3.8 MB
Has anyone observed this ?
Thank You
Srinivas Surapaneni

Answer 1

John,
I too have found that there may very well be a BUG in the reader-rights enabling feature of Adobe Acrobat 8.0 through 8.1. When PDF forms are saved with reader-rights enabled, performing repetitive File>SaveAs commands results in the unusual behavior of the file size growing exponentially regardless of whether you add data or delete data from the form. The expected behavior would be that if you add a little data: the file size grows a little and if you delete a little data: the file size shrinks a little. This is NOT the case with reader rights-enabled forms regardless of whether you perform the File>SaveAs operations in Acrobat 8.1 OR Reader 8.1.
There is a very easy way to test this unexpected behavior (bug):
Create a simple form in Adobe Acrobat 8.1 by:
1)Open Acrobat and select from the menu: File>Create PDF>From Blank Page.
2) Drag and drop a few (say 20) text box controls onto the form.
3) Fill in the text box controls with some data.
4) Save 2 versions of this form: one with reader-rights and the other without reader-rights. (As an example, the filenames could be: "blank_form.pdf" and "blank_form_RE.pdf")
The form named "blank_form_RE.pdf" is the one that contains the reader-rights.
5) Open "blank_form_RE.pdf" in Reader 8.1 and perform multiple File>SaveAs operations with data deletion and data addition combinations. You will find that the file size either stays the same or starts growing abnormally large. The size of the file NEVER gets smaller even when you clear the form of all the data! This behavior occurs even when you open the "blank_form_RE.pdf" file in Acrobat and repeat the same test sequence.
6) But when you open the non reader-rights enabled form (blank_form.pdf") in Acrobat and perform the testing described in step #5, you will see expected file size growth/shrinkage behavior.
We have alerted the fine people at Adobe to this problem and we are awaiting confirmation from them as to whether or not this is in fact a BUG in the reader-rights enabling feature of Acrobat 8.0-8.1.
I called Adobe's tech support and they are stating that this is a known behavior/feature. I have no idea how one interprets file size bloat as a "feature".