Removing stubborn Form Objects

[Tim-Ellis]

Hello Guys,

I really need you help. I have some “form” objects in my PDFs that I just cannot remove in an Action List. Below are links to the before and after PDFs. You can see in Wireframe View how there are two empty boxes in the before.pdf that have been removed manually in the after.pdf.

The question is, how do I get from the before to the after?


https://www.dropbox.com/s/1joj4d4g856918d/Test%20for%20Forum%20before.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/lqsw00o0k2uikwg/Test%20for%20Forum%20after.pdf?dl=0


It’s a sensitive customer file, so I had to remove 99% of the artwork but you have some text and vectors that needs to be preserved.

Any help gratefully recieved.Show less

 

[Stephen Marsh]

Tim, I could only remove the large outer form element with an action list.

The smaller form element, for whatever reason is an intrinsic part of the smaller objects and does not select and if manually selected and removed the actual printable objects go too! Strange…


Stephen Marsh

 

[Tim-Ellis]

Hello Stephen,

Thanks for having a go. I am relieved that it's not just me struggling with this one.

The smaller object I can live with. How did you remove the large one? Can you upload or describe your Action List?

 

[Stephen Marsh]

I tried a few things to remove the stubborn smaller element, so some steps may now be redundant and could possibly be removed… Start with only the two bold ones!

_____

Select all
Flatten form fields

_____

Select forms
remove selections

_____

Select objects that use neither a stroke or fill
remove selection

_____

(use the last two with care as they could potentially remove a clipping mask if present?)


Hope this helps,

Stephen Marsh

 

[Tim-Ellis]

Thanks for your help Stephen,

I'm away from my Mac right now so I can't share the result. Basically there are three guy's preparing these automated templates and they all use a slightly different method to set them up. As a result I need a combination of all of the above to cover all bases.