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Dropbox Fax preview removes form layout after sending (only filled text visible)

Hi,

I noticed a strange issue with Dropbox Fax preview when sending a PDF form.

I uploaded a filled IRS form. The original PDF displays correctly in Adobe Acrobat, Edge, and Chrome, including all table lines, labels, and layout.

When I upload the document to Dropbox Fax, the preview looks completely normal. The form layout, table lines, and labels are all visible.

However, after the fax is sent and I view the document again in the "Sent" preview, most of the form layout disappears and only the text fields I filled remain visible. It looks like the background form layer or table lines are not rendered anymore.

Additional details:

- The original PDF renders correctly in Acrobat and browsers.

- The preview before sending looks correct.

- The issue only appears in the preview after the fax is sent.

- I also tried flattening the PDF before uploading, but the sent preview still shows the same behavior.

- If I download the document from the preview and open it locally, the layout appears normal again.

My question is: does the fax transmission use the original PDF rendering, or does it rely on the preview rendering shown after sending?

I just want to confirm whether the recipient will receive the full document layout (tables and labels), or if they will only see the text fields.

Thanks!

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Comments

Jay

Hi @edwarddev, thanks for messaging the Community.

Have you tried sending a sample fax to test to see what will appear when it is completed?

This will help me to assist further!

edwarddev

Hi Jay,

Thanks for the suggestion.

Unfortunately I don't have access to a physical fax receiver. However, the original PDF renders correctly in Acrobat and browsers, and the "sign the document" preview before sending also looks normal.

The issue only appears in the "Sent preview" inside Dropbox Fax, where most of the form layout disappears and only the filled text remains visible.

If I download the document from the preview and open it locally, the full layout appears again.

This makes me think the issue might be related to the preview rendering after sending rather than the original PDF itself.

If it helps with debugging, I can also provide a sanitized test PDF that reproduces the issue.

Thanks again for your help.

johndbx

Hey @edwarddev,

The Fax transmission does depend on something more akin to the preview image so it is likely that it'll be transmitted as previewed.

If you can provide a sanitized test PDF that reproduces that issue that would be very helpful and we'll do further testing to see if we can prevent this in the future.

If you uploaded the document pre-filled, it's possible there's something wrong w/ how we handle the prefilled fields. What application did you fill it out in? If you upload an unfilled document with unfilled fields, we do detect the fields and you can fill them out on Dropbox Fax directly, that might work better.

Thanks for the feedback! We really appreciate it!