I have created a PDF file using Acrobat Adobe 8 that contains fillable fields.
Can that be programmed with ITextSharp instead of Adobe?
Note: I am not referring to filling out the PDF with ITextSharp, instead I would like to create the fillable fields on the PDF file using ITextSharp.
Any code would be appreciated.
thank you for your time!
You can create PDFs that contain fillable fields with iText[Sharp], but they won't look as nice as Adobe Acrobat, which is a much better design tool.
By fillable fields, I'm guessing you mean a TextField. Here's a link with some simple example code from the book to get you started. Specifically, take a look at the CreatePdf() and CellLayout() methods, and the iText API if you need more information.
Related
We're using mPDF, but when combining PDF files with Acrobat form fields, the output result strips the form fields.
I've combed through the documentation, looked extensively online, and I can't find a solution that works with mPDF.
mPDF uses FPDI in the back which simply does not support importing of form fields.
Update: As of mPDF 7 you can create fillable forms within PDFs dynamically - :D !
In our application we are using Itext Pdf 5.5.3 library.
We have checked with some of the pdfs in which Checkboxes displayed correctly(check/uncheck) .
However there are some pdf with RadioBoxes and do not display radiobutton(on/off) correctly.
I also use this link to validate pdfs and java code
String[] values = form.getAppearanceStates("Checkbox");
return null values.
Also tried Itext RUPS and found that pdf which are working shows Form Field Names in RUPS Form Tab. And PDfs which are not working do not display form fields.
I tried generating pdf from word document and it doesn't display form fields in RUP , neither I can check/uncheck checkbox in Adobe Acrobat Reader.
What could be the solution to display radiobutton with check on / off ?
Edit -
I had created sample web application to reproduce the issue.
Please setup attached web application and let me know the fix for the issue.
Please download from this link
You have successfully discovered the difference between interactive PDF forms and "flat" PDF documents that look like a form to the human eye, but that aren't interactive forms.
To make the "flat" forms interactive, you need to open those flat documents in PDF editing software (e.g. Adobe Acrobat) and you need to add a form field manually.
You can ask Acrobat to guess where it should add fields, but Acrobat will be wrong in many cases for obvious reasons. You always need a human if you want it to be done correctly.
As for creating an interactive PDF from Word... Forget about it. Use OpenOffice or LibreOffice.
I know that forms in .pdf made by Adobe Acrobat can act like questionnaire or application blank for filling input fileds and saving results, but is it possible in a way to add more interactiviry to them
- add file upload or attachment to resulting document?
It's kind of possible.
You'll need to add Javascript code to your documents. The code should show Browse For File dialog and import selected file to the document. Please have a look at Import Named File Attachment script (at the bottom of the page). I doubt that this solution will work in Adobe Reader or alternative PDF viewers, but Acrobat Professional should do the trick.
Another solution is given is this thread on Adobe forums:
...I figured out a roundabout way to attach files in adobe reader (not
the full blow adobe acrobat reader). Via Adobe Acrobat 9 Pro I
created a blank form with the "comment/mark up" tools enabled. Then I
merged that file with the other PDF form that was formatted with
fields, radial buttons etc. I had to create the blank form for the
attachments separately because if I tried to enable the "comment/mark
up' tool on the form with fields and radial buttons it disabled the
fields. ... The comment markup tool then allowed me to attach files
via the "attach file as a comment" option.
I have a three page Word document that needs to be converted into PDF. This Word document was given to me as a template to show me what the PDF output should look like. I tried converting this document into PDF, created a PDF form and used iTextSharp to open the form, populate it with data and return it back to the client. This is all great but due to large amounts of data stored, the placeholders were insufficient and the text would be truncated or hidden.
My second attempt was to create an MVC 2 View without master page, pass the model to the view, take the HTML representation of the View, pass it over to iTextSharp and render the PDF. The problem here was that iTextSharp failed on some tags (one of them was <hr> tag). I managed to get rid of the problematic tag, but then tables were not rendered properly. Namely, the border attribute was ignored so I ended up with borderless tables. That attempt failed.
I need a suggestion or advice on the most efficient way to create a PDF document in MVC 2 which would be maintainable in the long run. I really don't want my actions to be 200+ lines long. Working directly with the Word document is not the best solution as I have never worked with VSTO so I don't quite know what it would look like to open Word and manipulate text inside of it and add dynamic data and then convert that dynamically into PDF.
Any suggestion is highly welcome.
Best regards!
One thing that I've done in the past is to save the Word file as a DOCX and unzip it since DOCX is just a renamed zip file. Within the archive open up /word/document.xml and you'll see your document. There's a lot of weird XML tags in there but overall you should get a pretty good idea of where your content is. Then just add placeholder text like {FIRST_NAME}, save the file and re-zip.
Then from code you can just perform the same steps, unzipping with something like SharpZipLib or DotNetZip, swapping placeholder copy, re-zipping and then using very simple Word automation to Save-As a PDF.
The other route is to fully utilize iTextSharp and actually write Paragraphs and PdfPTable and everything else. It takes a lot longer to setup but would give you the most control.
Q: you say "... but due to large amounts of data stored, the placeholders were insufficient and the text would be truncated or hidden"
How do you end up having to much data ? If the word template can "hold" the data in 3 pages, they should fit in 3 PDF pages.
I used to use iTextSharp to create my PDF's, but I also almost always ended up building the PDF document from scratch myself.(not really a <200 line solution) Have you considerate another library, I recently switched to MigraDoc's PDFSharp.Way simpler to use then iText, lotsa examples / docus
Just my two cents
Word documents object model is quite easy to understand. It will either contain series of Paragraphs or Tables. Using the Open XML SDK, you can iterate through each paragraph/table in the word document and retrieve it's content and styles. Then you can generate PDF document on the fly using those retrieved information. This will work under MVC too.
But if your word document contains complex elements, then it will take some more time for you to implement based on this approach. Also, this approach would only work with (Word 2007 and 2010) files.
Also, HTML to PDF options currently available in the ITextSharp library would work with only known set of tags, as far as I know.
Another suggestion is to make use of commercially available .NET components. There are lot of good solution available. For ex: Syncfusion
hi im working on pdf manipulation.
my requirements are to edit the existing pdf document.
looks like there is no actual way to do it. i found out using javascript i can edit the html contents.
so now that my pdf is in uiwebview is there any way to convert pdf document to html content???
i have to do it programatically.
preferred language is objective c but its k if any suggestions in C/C++
thanks in advance
You will have to drop down to C if you want to do this. Basically you need to get hold of a CGPDFDocumentRef reference, and through that iterate each CGPDFPageRef. From the page you can get access to the CGPDFContentStreamRef.
From the content stream you can parse out the primitive data that is is PDF document. From there only a good understanding of the PDF document format can help you.
I would advice you to find a commercial tool, hire an experience contractor, or change your plan. What you have your sights on is allot of hard work.