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junaid_97today at 1:42 AM4 repliesview on HN

I'm buildingan open-source way to fill U.S. immigration forms without fighting clunky PDFs

Github: https://github.com/athos2113/fillvisa-os

Demo: https://fillvisa.com/demo/

US Immigration still relies on outdated XFA PDFs - you can't fill them on your browser. Most immigrants end up printing the form and fill it manually.

So, I converted the PDF forms into smart web forms. They are replica of the official USCIS forms and follow conditonal logic. In the output, you get the official USCIS pdf form filled.


Replies

kittensmittenstoday at 4:53 AM

I hope this becomes obsolete by no longer being necessary

yboristoday at 3:43 AM

I was stuck unable to fill out a PDF I-864 for immigration because the required fields were non-editable. And opening the PDF in a PDF editor or Photoshop would require a password that was not available. So I had to create a PDF-to-JPG-to-PDF pipeline:

https://github.com/whyboris/PDF-to-JPG-to-PDF

mvanzoesttoday at 3:56 AM

Interesting. I downloaded some PDFs for the adjustment of status forms recently and most of them were editable but only partially - the conditional fields couldn't be edited it seemed.

Cider9986today at 3:22 AM

That's cool. How are you gonna get it in the hands of people that would need it?