Troubleshooting technical difficulties with pdf forms

Some members have reported difficulties accessing and/or printing our pdf forms. For the most part, these difficulties are resolved by upgrading to the latest version of Acrobat Reader. Here is the link to download the most recent version of Acrobat Reader—available for free—from Adobe’s site: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html

If you are experiencing difficulty printing the forms, please refer to Adobe’s site:
PC — http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/150d6.htm
Mac — http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/a9da.htm

Frequently asked questions

Q: When I open the Retirement Application, some boxes are already automatically checked—such as “Type of retirement,” or “Qualified Domestic Relations Order”—and they do not reflect my answers.

A: The only box that should be pre-checked is “Copy of birth certificate.” If a box that is outlined in red is pre-checked and it shouldn’t be, please deselect that box by clicking on the check mark, or check the correct box that is appropriate. (Note: You cannot enter data in boxes that are outlined in gray, as they are not interactive.)

Q: Whenever I type into a blank field in the Retirement Application, an error message screen pops up (for example, “Invalid date/time: please ensure date/time exists,” or, “The value entered does not match the format of the field”). How can I make the error message go away?

A: You are getting these error messages because the data entered in one or more fields was not entered in the correct format. To get rid of these messages, close out of Acrobat Reader and then reopen the Retirement Application. Make sure that when you enter a date, you enter it in the format “mm/dd/yyyy,” and for any Social Security numbers, use hyphens, “XXX-XX-XXXX.” This should prevent any pop-up error messages from appearing.

Q: After I click on the link to open the form, I get a blank screen.

A: We believe that this is caused by a computer memory issue (that there’s not enough memory to run both your browser and open the form in Acrobat Reader). First, check the version of Acrobat Reader that you’re using. If you have a version that is 4.0 or less, we recommend that you upgrade to the latest version (see above) if you do have a later version, then contact us and we will either e-mail you the pdf document that you may be able to open without being connected to the Internet, or send you a hard copy via regular mail.