I have used iText to fill data into existing AcroForm fields in a PDF.
I am now looking for a solution to add new AcroForm fields to a PDF. Is this possible with iText? If so, how can I do this?
This is documented in the official documentation, more specifically in the SubmitForm example. When using a tool such as iText, you should read the official documentation first ;-)
Anyway, I've written you a simple example called AddField. It adds a button field at a specific position defined by new Rectangle(36, 700, 72, 730).
public void manipulatePdf(String src, String dest) throws DocumentException, IOException {
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(src);
PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, new FileOutputStream(dest));
PushbuttonField button = new PushbuttonField(
stamper.getWriter(), new Rectangle(36, 700, 72, 730), "post");
button.setText("POST");
button.setBackgroundColor(new GrayColor(0.7f));
button.setVisibility(PushbuttonField.VISIBLE_BUT_DOES_NOT_PRINT);
PdfFormField submit = button.getField();
submit.setAction(PdfAction.createSubmitForm(
"http://itextpdf.com:8180/book/request", null,
PdfAction.SUBMIT_HTML_FORMAT | PdfAction.SUBMIT_COORDINATES));
stamper.addAnnotation(submit, 1);
stamper.close();
}
}
As you can see, you need to create a PdfFormField object (using helper classes such as PushbuttonField, TextField,...) and then use PdfStamper's addAnnotation() method to add the field to a specific page.
Related
This question is the follow up to another question on stackoverflow.
I open an existing PDF with this code snippet:
reader = New PdfReader(filenameSource)
writer = New PdfWriter(destFile)
pdf = New PdfDocument(reader, writer)
doc = New Document(pdf, pdf.GetDefaultPageSize, False)
I can add a paragraph now via doc.add(new Paragraph(...))
But when I try to place a table with table.setFixedPosition(...), the table doesn´t show on the page.
Has anybody any hint for me?
Thanks and best regards
Benjamin
Based on your information I wrote this piece of code:
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader("LoremIpsum.pdf");
PdfWriter writer = new PdfWriter("LoremIpsum-with-positioned-table.pdf");
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument(reader, writer);
Document doc = new Document(pdf, pdf.GetDefaultPageSize(), false);
Table table = new Table(new float[] { 200 });
table.AddCell(new Cell().Add(new Paragraph("test")).SetBackgroundColor(ColorConstants.CYAN));
table.SetFixedPosition(1, 100, 100, 200);
doc.Add(table);
doc.Close();
This didn't reproduce your issue
when I try to place a table with table.setFixedPosition(...), the table doesn´t show on the page.
because the result looks like this:
The table clearly shows.
I've spent much time to no avail on this issue. My PDF pages are automatically numbered 'Page 1 of 0' when creating a PDF as follows:
using (MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream())
using (Document document = new Document(PageSize.A4, 10, 10, 25, 25))
using (PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, ms))
{
writer.PageEvent = new TextEvents();
document.Open();
document.NewPage();
document.Add(new Phrase("Hello World!"));
document.Close();
writer.Close();
var docout = ms.ToArray();
ms.Close();
return docout;
}
How do I stop this behaviour? I do not want a page numberer.
In this line
writer.PageEvent = new TextEvents();
you tell itext to send page events to an instance of your own TextEvents class. As no other part of the code you show adds page numbers, it must be this class of yours that does.
You can test this by removing the code line quoted above.
Beware: probably that TextEvents class does something else, too, probably something you want. Instead of completely removing that line above, therefore, you might eventually have to analyse your TextEvents class and only remove the unwanted behaviour.
To add to the above answer, TextEvents() should be extending PdfPageEventHelper which has an onEndPage() method where you will find the code that adds page x of n.
I would like to open an existing pdf, add some text and then output as content disposition using itext sharp. I have the following code. Where it falls down it is that i want to output as memory stream but need to filestream to open the original file.
Here's what i have. Obviously defining PdfWriter twice won't work.
public static void Create(string path)
{
var Response = HttpContext.Current.Response;
Response.Clear();
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
System.IO.MemoryStream m = new System.IO.MemoryStream();
Document document = new Document();
PdfWriter wri = PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, new FileStream(path, FileMode.Create));
PdfWriter.GetInstance(document, m);
document.Open();
document.Add(new Paragraph(DateTime.Now.ToString()));
document.NewPage();
document.Add(new Paragraph("Hello World"));
document.Close();
Response.OutputStream.Write(m.GetBuffer(), 0, m.GetBuffer().Length);
Response.OutputStream.Flush();
Response.OutputStream.Close();
Response.End();
}
You've got a couple of problems that I'll try to walk you through.
First, the Document object is only for working with new PDFs, not modifying existing ones. Basically the Document object is a bunch of wrapper classes that abstract away the underlying parts of the PDF spec and allow you to work with higher level things like paragraphs and reflowable content. These abstractions turn what you think of "paragraphs" into raw commands that write the paragraph one line at a time with no relationship between lines. When working with an existing document there's no safe way to say how to reflow text so these abstractions aren't used.
Instead you want to use the PdfStamper object. When working with this object you have two choices for how to work with potentially overlapping content, either your new text gets written on top of existing content or your text gets written below it. The two methods GetOverContent() or GetUnderContent() of an instantiated PdfStamper object will return a PdfContentByte object that you can then write text with.
There's two main ways to write text, either manually or through a ColumnText object. If you've done HTML you can think of the ColumnText object as using a big fixed-position single row, single column <TABLE>. The advantage of the ColumnText is that you can use the higher level abstractions such as Paragraph.
Below is a full working C# 2010 WinForms app targeting iTextSharp 5.1.2.0 that show off the above. See the code comments for any questions. It should be pretty easy to convert this to ASP.Net.
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
namespace WindowsFormsApplication1 {
public partial class Form1 : Form {
public Form1() {
InitializeComponent();
}
private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
string existingFile = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "file1.pdf");
string newFile = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "file2.pdf");
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(existingFile, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.None)) {
using (Document doc = new Document(PageSize.LETTER)) {
using (PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, fs)) {
doc.Open();
doc.Add(new Paragraph("This is a test"));
doc.Close();
}
}
}
//Bind a PdfReader to our first document
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(existingFile);
//Create a new stream for our output file (this could be a MemoryStream, too)
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(newFile, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.None)) {
//Use a PdfStamper to bind our source file with our output file
using (PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, fs)) {
//In case of conflict we want our new text to be written "on top" of any existing content
//Get the "Over" state for page 1
PdfContentByte cb = stamper.GetOverContent(1);
//Begin text command
cb.BeginText();
//Set the font information
cb.SetFontAndSize(BaseFont.CreateFont(BaseFont.HELVETICA, BaseFont.CP1250, false), 16f);
//Position the cursor for drawing
cb.MoveText(50, 50);
//Write some text
cb.ShowText("This was added manually");
//End text command
cb.EndText();
//Create a new ColumnText object to write to
ColumnText ct = new ColumnText(cb);
//Create a single column who's lower left corner is at 100x100 and upper right is at 500x200
ct.SetSimpleColumn(100,100,500,200);
//Add a higher level object
ct.AddElement(new Paragraph("This was added using ColumnText"));
//Flush the text buffer
ct.Go();
}
}
this.Close();
}
}
}
As to your second problem about the FileStream vs MemoryStream, if you look at the method signature for almost every (actually all as far as I know) method within iTextSharp you'll see that they all take a Stream object and not just a FileStream object. Any time you see this, even outside of iTextSharp, this means that you can pass in any subclass of Stream which includes the MemoryStream object, everything else stays the same.
The code below is a slightly modified version of the one above. I've removed most of the comments to make it shorter. The main change is that we're using a MemoryStream instead of a FileStream. Also, when we're done with the PDF when need to close the PdfStamper object before accessing the raw binary data. (The using statment will do this for us automatically later but it also closes the stream so we need to manually do it here.)
One other thing, never, ever use the GetBuffer() method of the MemoryStream. It sounds like what you want (and I have mistakenly used it, too) but instead you want to use ToArray(). GetBuffer() includes uninitialized bytes which usually produces corrupt PDFs. Also, instead of writing to the HTTP Response stream I'm saving the bytes to array first. From a debugging perspective this allows me to finish all of my iTextSharp and System.IO code and make sure that it is correct, then do whatever I want with the raw byte array. In my case I don't have a web server handy so I'm writing them to disk but you could just as easily call Response.BinaryWrite(bytes)
string existingFile = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "file1.pdf");
string newFile = Path.Combine(Environment.GetFolderPath(Environment.SpecialFolder.Desktop), "file2.pdf");
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(existingFile);
byte[] bytes;
using(MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream()){
using (PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, ms)) {
PdfContentByte cb = stamper.GetOverContent(1);
ColumnText ct = new ColumnText(cb);
ct.SetSimpleColumn(100,100,500,200);
ct.AddElement(new Paragraph("This was added using ColumnText"));
ct.Go();
//Flush the PdfStamper's buffer
stamper.Close();
//Get the raw bytes of the PDF
bytes = ms.ToArray();
}
}
//Do whatever you want with the bytes
//Below I'm writing them to disk but you could also write them to the output buffer, too
using (FileStream fs = new FileStream(newFile, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.None)) {
fs.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
}
The second part of your question title says:
"outputting as content disposition"
If that's what you really want you can do this:
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=DESIRED-FILENAME.pdf");
Using a MemoryStream is unnecessary, since Response.OutputStream is available. Your example code is calling NewPage() and not trying to add the text to an existing page of your PDF, so here's one way to do what you asked:
Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
Response.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", "attachment; filename=itextTest.pdf");
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(readerPath);
// store the extra text on the last (new) page
ColumnText ct = new ColumnText(null);
ct.AddElement(new Paragraph("Text on a new page"));
int numberOfPages = reader.NumberOfPages;
int newPage = numberOfPages + 1;
// get all pages from PDF "template" so we can copy them below
reader.SelectPages(string.Format("1-{0}", numberOfPages));
float marginOffset = 36f;
/*
* we use the selected pages above with a PdfStamper to copy the original.
* and no we don't need a MemoryStream...
*/
using (PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, Response.OutputStream)) {
// use the same page size as the __last__ template page
Rectangle rectangle = reader.GetPageSize(numberOfPages);
// add a new __blank__ page
stamper.InsertPage(newPage, rectangle);
// allows us to write content to the (new/added) page
ct.Canvas = stamper.GetOverContent(newPage);
// add text at an __absolute__ position
ct.SetSimpleColumn(
marginOffset, marginOffset,
rectangle.Right - marginOffset, rectangle.Top - marginOffset
);
ct.Go();
}
I think you've already figured out that the Document / PdfWriter combination doesn't work in this situation :) That's the standard method for creating a new PDF document.
I want to create a PdfWriter Object and set Events for Header and Footer.
The problem is it works if I create a new PDF. But my problem is I already have a PDF in Output Stream. Please find my sample code below.
Document document = new Document();
try {
// step 2:
FileInputStream is = new FileInputStream("D://2.pdf");
int nRead;
byte[] data = new byte[16384];
ByteArrayOutputStream buffer = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
while ((nRead = is.read(data, 0, data.length)) != -1) {
buffer.write(data, 0, nRead);
}
buffer.flush();
PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.getInstance(document,buffer);
writer.setViewerPreferences(PdfWriter.PageLayoutTwoColumnLeft);
writer.setPageEvent(new DossierPortalUtil());
document.setMargins(36, 36, 54, 72);
// step 3:
document.open();
document.add( new Chunk("testing"));
} catch (Exception de) {
de.printStackTrace();
}
finally{
document.close();
}
If I comment the line
document.add( new Chunk("testing"));
I get an exception
Exception in thread "main" ExceptionConverter: java.io.IOException: The document has no pages.
Without commenting there are no exceptions but it doesnt add the Header and Footer. Any clues are highly appreciated.
Regards,
Tina
enter code here
Yep.
You're trying to modify an existing PDF with PdfWriter, when you should be using PdfStamper.
Adding text with a stamper is Far Less Trivial than doing so with PdfWriter and a Document.
You need to create a ColumnText object, and get a PdfContentByte by calling myStamper.getOverContent(pageNum).
You add the paragraphs/chunks/etc to the ColumnText, and pass it the PdfContentByte (and some positional parameters) to draw the text.
Alternatively, you can create a separate PDF with your text (and anything else), then use PdfStamper & PdfImportedPage to import those pages and write them over top of the existing ones. PDF page backgrounds are transparent until you draw something over them, so the text (and stuff) will appear over top of the existing page. This is noticeably less efficient, as the second document has to be converted to a byte array in PDF syntax (if you're using a ByteArrayOutputStream instead of writing to a file, which would be even slower), parsed again, and then added to the original doc and written out a second time.
It's worth a little extra effort to use ColumnText.
You'll also need to write your header and footer directly with PdfContentByte calls, but you have to do that already within your PdfPageEvent, so those changes should be quite simple.
How to add a form field to an existing pdf with itextsharp?
I have an existing pdf document, I'd like to add form fields to it without creating a copy and writing out a new document.
After further review, the ruling on the field is overturned. Turns out if you form flatten the stamper the fields do not show on the resulting document (because they lack 'appearance' settings). BTW, form flattening prevents further edits of a form field. Now we can add appearance to the form, however, an easier way is to use the TextField class and not worry about explicitly setting up 'appearance' objects.
public void ABetterWayToAddFormFieldToExistingPDF( )
{
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(#"c:\existing.pdf");
FileStream out = new FileStream(#"C:\existingPlusFields.pdf", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
PdfStamper stamp = new PdfStamper(reader, out);
TextField field = new TextField(stamp.Writer, new iTextSharp.text.Rectangle(40, 500, 360, 530), "some_text");
// add the field here, the second param is the page you want it on
stamp.AddAnnotation(field.GetTextField(), 1);
stamp.FormFlattening = true; // lock fields and prevent further edits.
stamp.Close();
}
I struggled with this for awhile so figured I'd post the Question & Answer
Using the PdfStamper itext class is the key. (I guess this does make a copy but it's much cleaner than using the itext PdfCopy classes).
public void AddFormFieldToExistingPDF( )
{
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(#"c:\existing.pdf");
FileStream out = new FileStream(#"C:\existingPlusFields.pdf", FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write);
PdfStamper stamp = new PdfStamper(reader, out);
PdfFormField field = PdfFormField.CreateTextField(stamp.Writer, false, false, 50);
// set a field w/some position and size
field.SetWidget(new iTextSharp.text.Rectangle(40, 500, 360, 530),
PdfAnnotation.HIGHLIGHT_INVERT);
field.SetFieldFlags(PdfAnnotation.FLAGS_PRINT);
field.FieldName = "some_field";
// add the field here, the second param is the page you want it on
stamp.AddAnnotation(field, 1);
stamp.Close();
}
Using pdfStamper you can complete it.
PdfStamper Stamper= new PdfStamper(new PdfReader(sourcefile), File.Create(NewOutputFile));
TextField moreText = new TextField(Stamper.Writer,
new iTextSharp.text.Rectangle(20, 20, 590, 780), "moreText");
moreText.Visibility = TextField.VISIBLE_BUT_DOES_NOT_PRINT;
moreText.Text = "Use this space for any additional information";
moreText.Options = (TextField.MULTILINE);
PdfFormField Fieldtxt = moreText.GetTextField();
Stamper.AddAnnotation(Fieldtxt, n);