dunroving

Can anyone tell me whether you need the full version of Adobe Acrobat to fill in forms 156 and 157 for mailing a visa revalidation within the US?

A friend who submitted his a year ago at the London embassy merely printed (wrote) his form. Can you still do this?

I also found an online version (a "bar coded 156") of the form at a non-USCIS immigration Web site. It looked like I might be able to complete the form online and then print it out.

I don't want to hand write the form and then get it back 3 months later labelled "Dummy, try again". Similarly, I already spent a long time filling in a 156 via Acrobat reader and it wouldn't let me print or save it. I'm reluctant to do the same with this online form if it won't work.

Any ideas? Thanks.

Ben

You don't need the full version of Acrobat in order to fill the forms in on line. As long as you have the latest version you will be fine. You just can't save it. You have to print it out as soon as you have filled it in.

powburn

The US Consulate in London prefers you to use the bar coded DS-156 form. Trouble is, it has a bug on question 35 (or had when I filled it in Dec 2003. The Yes/No boxes to the question "Has your U.S. Visa ever been cancelled or revoked" defaults to "Yes" regardless of which box you actually click on.

I mentioned this bug at my US Consular interview and they were well aware of it. In my case I supplied them with the normal pdf versions filled in using Acrobat and printed out, not the bar code version - received my passport with visa back in a week or so, no problem.

They might well accept forms completed by hand, but I wouldn't recommend it.