"Progress"

[Jethro_uk]

Just looked at an application SWMBO had to make for a concessionary bus pass.

Bless her, she's done her best, but her writing has deteriorated quite a bit. "barely legible" is being kind.

Looking over the form (8 pages - 2xA4 with staples), it occurred to me that for all the technology, we are still losing the ability to do certain things.

In this case, if we had an old-fashioned roller-typewriter, SWMBO could have filled in the form in a couple of minutes. No amount of scanners or printers - no matter how advanced - would be of any use.

[Jonno]

Jethro_uk scribbled

Has she tried BLOCK CAPITALS ?

[Jethro_uk]

That's her default writing nowdays (and what the form demanded). But with vision/coordination problems it's less and less legible.

It's galling that 35 years since I started in IT, we are still pulping trees to send paper handwritten forms all around the houses. (One of my reasons for not believing a word of AGW).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Scan the forms then fill them in on the computer, print out and send?

I've done this several times without complaints (although not for a bus pass - I don't remember the London Freedom pass being that complicated.)

Means you can keep a record of what was sent, too.

[Robin]

Not for Freedom Passes which in (most of) London went online by default this year. Many public libraries were geared up to help. Applications by post are still possible as a backup but initial results showed only a minority going that route.

I thought the same was true of the bus pass in much (but by no means all) of England but I don't know if that is only for the State-pension-age-qualified variety.

and should tell you if you can DIY online the "capture the keystroke" bit..

[Jethro_uk]

We're not in London

No. Our LA redirects us back to Centro, who work in dead-tree land.

[Jethro_uk]

Too much faff. I suspect the forms were designed *not* to be scanned. They have a PDF online, but it's not directly editable.

True that. I did it with SWMBO ESA50. Along with scanned cross references and a header with name, DOB and NI number on every page, along with a "page x of y" tag. Clearly whoever received it wasn't in the mood for aggro, as SWMBO was put into the support group without an interview.

[The Natural Philosopher]

download it and import into Ccribus: overlay the pages with text boxes and fill em in, and overlay a digital signature, export as PDF,return it.

[Jethro_uk]

Ah, never thought to look - Scribus may be a good idea. Thanks (beer !).

I wonder if there's a way a community of Scribus-modded documents could be built up. Once I've done the work for SWMBO, I'd happily make the template available for download. It's the Big Society, you see.

[Fredxxx]

I find most PDFs are fillable and where the completed form can now be saved.

In the past where I haven't been able to do this, I have found and used alternative software to complete them, where I can create text boxes etc, but its such a long time since I've used anything like this. I can't recall what I might have used.

[Brian-Gaff]

Yes indeed, not only that, but as things migrate on line with no other way to do the task, there are loads of disabled and elderly people who have to give very private information to a third party they may not know very well in order to do what they could do at a post office or over the phone before. Baby out with the bathwater again. Its the bean counters that are doing it of course. The forms with that weird blueish box to fill in is supposed to be read by a computer, well, dream on. Brian

[Jonno]

Jethro_uk scribbled

Would you want the Chinese to be reading your lifestory?

[Brian-Gaff]

For most people its not the actual writing its keeping the block caps inside the blue box. I am now completely blind and its truly amazing the number of official forms i still get in paper form, when for me at least email would be far easier, and judging by the mis delivery rates of the post office of late, probably faster and more likely to get to the ritht person as well! Brian

[Brian-Gaff]

There are devices of course, but as is often the case, the costs are ridiculous. Brian

[Andy Burns]

If the form is this one

Then LibreOffice does a reasonable effort of importing the PDF, leaving you individual boxes into which to type characters and paste an image for the photo and signature, a few chunks of text could do with changing font size to wrap better.

[The Natural Philosopher]

stuff em up on a website as downloadables

But frankly not worth the bother. Its the work of minutes to redo

]

[dennis]

What's wrong with downloading the pdf and filling it in, you can even use a smart phone to do it.

[dennis]

You can edit pdfs in word these days.

[Adam Funk]

I first learned to type on manual typewriters. I've been told in recent years that I type too loud in meetings (not on a manual typewriter).

Ooh, that's a good tip; I've tried some PDF editing stuff without much success but I'll try Scribus next time.

[John Rumm]

Many PDF manipulation programs include both the ability to scan and to fill in forms or overwrite bits of them in "typewriter" mode.