Imagine you are editing a PDF file using Chrome. You make some changes and then download the file. You would expect Chrome to give you an updated file. However, it downloads the original file, without your edits.

A workaround is to use the Print option and then print the file as PDF. This is not the best user experience. Looks like Google is getting ready to fix this.

A code change request that I spotted today talks about a UI change that will let users download edited or original version of PDF files.

“PDF Viewer: Add UI to download edited PDF

• Add action menu providing options to download the original or edited
  PDF
• Menu only is shown if there are edits and the “SaveEditedPDFForm”
  feature is enabled.”

We are talking about a code change request here. It will take a while for this new feature to make it to the dev, beta and stable versions of Google Chrome. However, the bug associated with this change has a screenshot showing the upcoming UI.

According to the feature request, here is how this feature will work:

“If a PDF document is an editable form and the user has added data in the form fields, allow them to choose between downloading the edited form document or the original blank form document.”

We expect to see this feature to be available in the Canary version of Chrome in coming weeks. We shall update this article when this happens.

Stay tuned to Chrome Story for more updates.

Source: Gerrit & bugs.chromium.org.