Thursday, March 8, 2012

Visa paperwork---STILL

In March 2010, I had no trouble at all applying for our visa to visit China. This time, however, it's been a big pain in the you know what. The application is a pdf file, and the answers MUST be typed on the form in capital letters. For some reason, I can pull up the form on my computer, but I cannot type in the fields and I keep receiving a message that I need to download simplified Chinese, even though I already downloaded the font package a dozen times. So, I tried on two more laptops, all with different versions of Adobe Reader, with no success. David found that he could type on the pdf form from his computer, but the file will not allow him to print the documents. For weeks I've been working on this issue. I even took my computer to the computer fix-it shop, to see if they could help me. They said that the security settings on the pdf file do not allow editing. I asked the Visa service (Caring Hands) if they would type the information on the form for me, and they will if I handwrite out the forms, scan them in and send them to them, and pay an extra $75! Thanks, but no thanks. Finally, after trying and trying to fill out the visa application, I stopped at my friend's house and tried it on her computer. She has Adobe Pro, and she's a computer geek. Sure enough, I was able to finally complete and print the forms! Hooray! Of course, since I was at a friend's house and in a hurry, I made a few mistakes and I have to go back and retype them tomorrow. But at least I know now that I can complete the visa applications finally.