Yes, you can fill XFA PDFs on Linux · ↗ linuxconfig.org

If you’ve ever had to fill out a digital form for the Canadian government, there’s a good chance you’ve come across an XFA PDF. These are essentially fancy fillable forms with features like validation, dynamic fields, and barcode generation. But if you’re a Linux user, you’ve probably seen this message instead:

If this message is not eventually replaced by the proper contents of the document, your PDF viewer may not be able to display this type of document.

You can upgrade to the latest version of Adobe Reader for Windows®, Mac, or Linux® by visiting http://www.adobe.com/go/reader_download.

Adobe may respect the Linux trademark, but they don’t respect Linux users. Adobe Reader for Linux was abandoned in 2013. So what’s a guy living in the eternal year of the Linux desktop to do?

Let’s consider our options. Alternative PDF readers? No. Chrome? Nope. Firefox? It can open the files but not save any of the changes. The online Adobe Reader? Nope. Adobe mobile apps? Nope! It’s only Adobe Reader for desktop. But the Linux version is so old it no longer appears on Adobe’s website.

The solution? Use Wine to run the Windows version, of course! The website linuxconfig.org provides a nice tutorial on how to do just this. I can confirm that it works, at least on my Pop!_OS 22.04 install.

Happy PDFing with official government forms locked behind an awful proprietary format!