On Sun, 4 Aug 2002, Janina Sajka wrote: > I do not believe that SS will accept an ASCII translation, > though I may be wrong about that. Therein lies only part of the > problem with these forms. Probably not as such. But I was able to get them to accept something similar a few years ago, after a bunch of hassle about alternative adaptations. Try something like this: Get someone to check off some obvious boxes on the real original form for you (sex, national origin, maybe age, etc). Only let them do the most terse, brief stuff: this is mostly symbolic that you used the form. The forms provide inadequate space for longer answers in short boxes throughout, and that is where most of the info really is. The instructions say to use the back (also very limited) and/or added pages for continued answers: this is what you use for almost everything. You get your helper to write on the first few of these: "Not enough room -- see attached" Then more terse: "See attached" or "See other continued" "Same as last question" and the like, finally just: "Same" in the rest of the boxes. Following your pdf2text translation, you just then write a simple text based letter with the answers (keep what came through of the original question with some minor fixup, with the question numbers where they show up). The original forms are a messy mass of lines and boxes, impossible to convert well, so a lot will be scrambled, but just work with what you have, doing the best you can. Include an explanation of what you are doing and why, and a polite disclaimer at the end about stuff that may have been lost, and to just contact you if they need anything. Maybe include a copy of the original pdf2text translation with your edited one, so they can see what you were up against, and that you made a good effort. If part of the form is impossibly garbled, consider calling the casework assigned to your case for clarification -- but don't give them a chance to approve of disapprove of your approach -- just say something vague about adaptive technology that fits your peculiar needs and lifestyle (ie, lowlevel textmode linux CLI stuff, emacspeak, synth, -- the jargon may be your friend here). Perhaps make a point that you used the form, as far as your limitations permitted (thus you filled the letter of the law^H^H^H"regulation"). It might be counterproductive to use fancy formatting or a nice postscript printer with fancy fonts in this situation, even if you have access to such. They should understand the reality of what you work with. Of course, decent neatness and care are always important. I found the SS bureaucracy incredibly inflexible, but the workers I talked to seemed willing to help, but similarly tied down by the system. You will probably find that some will sort of indirectly agree with you that they are in violation of the law, but you will likely meet that inflexibility anyway. My review dragged on for about a year before I finally thought of a similar solution, and they accepted the final result. A lot may depend on the workers involved, and how you treat them (they must have to put up with a lot of such frustration every day). It must be a bit embarrassing, in an agency that is supposed to be helping disabled people. Best of luck -- with SS, you will need it. LCR PS. Appeals are normal and routine with that underfunded, financially unstable, overloaded, perpetually months or years behind in their caseload, technically backward, and generally broken system. -- L. C. Robinson reply to no_spam+munged_lcr@onewest.net.invalid People buy MicroShaft for compatibility, but get incompatibility and instability instead. This is award winning "innovation". Find out how MS holds your data hostage with "The *Lens*"; see "CyberSnare" at http://www.netaction.org/msoft/cybersnare.html