On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 08:50:30 -0500, John B. Smith
wrote:

On Thu, 23 Feb 2017 01:20:01 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:

David Samuel Barr wrote:

These forms are supposed to be a printable paper alternative to the
preferred (and in many cases mandatory) e-file. You are not expected
to send a pdf file to the state; they have nowhere for you to e-mail
it to (or to otherwise communicate with them in that manner). You
are supposed to type in the blanks, print out the completed form and
mail it in, and it shouldn't be so hard to do so.

Until last year, the state used standard fill-in pdf forms; you just
opened the form, typed in the available fields with your own
numbers/text, and printed the results. Last year, they modified
several of the primary forms to generate 2D barcodes based on the
field entries to expedite the scanning and processing thereof; the
new forms also compute totals where needed and, somewhat
problematically, calculate the tax due and the amount to be paid or
refunded. (The problem, I found, is that often the computed taxes do
not match those in the tax tables in the published instruction book
for the income amount.)

So this PDF is unusable unless the PDF viewer's Javascript is enabled.
Oh joy. Leave it to a stupid gov't boob to require a less-secure PDF
document to use it.

When you open a 2D file (I use Adobe Reader on various machines
running XP, Vista, and 8.1, with no problems), it first displays an
instruction sheet; when you click anywhere on the sheet it goes away
and presents the rest of the form. The green PRINT button is clearly
visible in the upper-left corner of the first page, next to a blue
LINKS button and opposite a red RESET one.

Those buttons are NOT present when viewing their .pdf in PDF-xchange
Editor. Apparently those buttons are not present in other *non*-Adobe
PDF viewers, too, from the responses by others. Must be an Adobe Reader
specific function. When I view that .pdf in PDF-xchange Editor, and
even when if I enable Javascript in that PDF viewer, the "first page" is
says "WARNING: PLEASE USE A DIFFERENT PDF VIEWER" (in red on yellow) and
then in black-on-yellow text tells you to use the Adobe Reader.

When you have completed the form (occasionally being guided or
corrected in your entries if needed), you need to use the PRINT
button to print it. The Reader's Print and Print Preview functions
will not work; while the print menu will pop up, the preview window
will just display an order to use the button instead and that's all
the menu will print, followed by blanks for any additional pages in
the form.

Without Javascript (a security vulnerability) enabled in the PDF viewer,
those buttons are absent. Without using Adobe Reader, those buttons are
absent.

Somewhere in the mists of time I altered Adobe Reader 5 with some
program (think I even paid for it!) that allowed me to create pdfs.
But the way it did it was to add a button to Microsoft Word97 and its
sister Microsoft Excel. After that I was scared to update my Adobe
Reader. Now neither Word nor Excel works for me anymore at that
ancient version so I suppose I better just deinstall them and update
free Adobe Reader to its current version.

Sooo.... when I was fighting the Green Button mystery in my state tax
pdf, my old Adobe 5 Reader was not letting me decode the state's
arcane software. I wonder if jingle brains in Albany ever considered
that possibility when he invented his great new system.




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2YZnTL596Q
"How about the [CO2] scrubbers on the command module?"
"It takes square cartridges. The one on the LEM are round."
"[Sarcastically] Tell me this isn't a government operation."

The 10 Stupid Things the U.S. Government Spends Money On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb8kQRu-YkA

25 Craziest Things the U.S. Government Spends Money On
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmDp8DyasbE


I guess this post is mostly worn out, especially for non-New Yorkers,
but i have a couple more tidbits that I find interesting, perhaps a
few others might:

I did dl Adobe Free Reader 11 and open the crazy 2D pdf with it. At
first it seemed to have the same problem but I somehow discovered that
"window sliders" won't work. They would just give me a message to read
the directions and when I ok'd it snap back to the top of the page.

(Yeah, probably not the right name, it's what I'm called those things
on the left and right of the window that you drag with a mouse in
order to read print further down the page)

The workaround is to simply use the page arrows at the top of the page
to bump it into the next page. (Reason I use window sliders is cause
my ancient eyes cannot read text on the screen. Eyes have weakened
enough so that even computer glasses won't help anymore. My regular
distance lenses (now interocular lenses since cataracts surgery) work
about as well. So I almost always resort to using ctl + to increase
print size. So I cannot read a whole page at once once magnified liike
that, but must use the sliders. So the sloppy programming in the pdf
is discriminating against old taxpayers.)

So now i can get the 2nd page and even type into it, still no Green
Button. Ah, but somewhere along in the process of filling in the form,
or saving it, and bingo that Green print button magically appears.
Click it and nothing. But SOMEWHERE along the way, maybe when I tried
to close the doc, and bingo there was my printer dialogue window.


This has been a pretty useless discussion for 99% of you guys out
there, but I sure wish I could have read all these replies when I
first starting fighting with my nys taxes.