It's real simple. I've been banging my head against the wall for DAYS on this STUPID issue, so I'm just gonna wave a hundred bucks around.
$100 to the charity of your choice if you show me how to make a tax form that we've filled out data on, and make it NON-editable.
Simple as that.
We're on a Mac, Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro, or Preview that's part of OS X 10.8. Got it?
1. Download this IRS form http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f990--2012.pdf
2. Enter some text and check some checkboxes.
3. Describe the steps by which we turn that into a plain PDF where all the fields are checked and entered, but can no longer be altered by the person viewing it. It's just a plain flat PDF with no security that can be opened on any browser that supports common PDFs (no weird security locking). Also it's still vector (no turning it into bitmaps and OCR'ing for instance).
Not rocket science, right?
4. I try out your steps, first working answer, your charity gets a $100 check.