We are using AcroForm to update the fillable PDF. We are facing issue when trying to fill a larger text/data in the available field, Data is getting hidden due to less space (form filed size).
I currently have a pre-made PDF, which I have gone and used Adobe Acrobat PRO to create some entry fields within the PDF.Once I have completed the entire form, I would like to use Java to run through the PDF fill in the form with the associated information from some data (JSON/database), and re-save the PDF.
We are using PDFbox to fill the data, but its not working as expected. Could you please suggest some better approach where I can use acroform to fill the data using java and rows can be shifted based on data available i.e. form field size can be adjusted automatically as per data size.
Please find attached image where we are filling data as "Arvind Kumar Mishra 1234567899999 xsd test" on of the acrobat form field but only "Arvind Kumar Mishra 1234567899999" is getting displayed. Remaining data " xsd test " is not visible.
Could you please help on same. If we can do the same with open source tool, it would be great, but any suggestion would appreciable.
Related
Let me start off with saying that I've seen some questions in this regard but nothing actually specifically answering my issue.
Let's say I have a template version of a PDF received by someone else. It's a classic PDF that looks like a form but only one part is editable, the other parts are not because they are being filled in with data from an imported excel sheet. (Sadly I can't show an example)
I've been able to do most in iText 7 but I can't figure out for the life of me if I can change a flat text field into an editable form field, like on image 1.
Image 2 shows checkboxes that I want to make editable as well but I can only change their value within java and even then it only shows a cross, not a checkmark (even if I change the checktype).
It's a bit hard to explain but tl:dr is that I just want to know whether I can edit an existing flat PDF in java or if I have to do so in adobe itself.
Thanks
I have to create a pdf using itext which will contain a button, when clicked should add a row in an existing PdfPTable. I wrote some code to create a PushbuttonField. While trying to set action I can only find PdfAction.javaScript. I am not able to figure out how to add a row in a table. I tried searching online but all I could find is PdfAction.javaScript
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
When you create a PDF file, you draw text, lines and shapes to a canvas. That is also what happens when you add a PdfPTable to a Document. If you look at the syntax of the PDF page, you won't recognize a table. You'll find text (the content of the cells), lines (the borders), and shapes (the backgrounds), but you won't find a table. If the table is distributed over different pages, the "table" on one page won't know that it is related to the "table" on the other page.
Sure, you can add semantic structure to the document by introducing marked content, and by creating a structure tree, but that mechanism which we call Tagged PDF can't be used to make the PDF "editable" the same way a Word document is editable. Tagged PDF is (among others) used to allow assistive technology to present the content to the visually impaired (e.g. in the context of PDF/UA). The presence of structure doesn't change the fact that all text, all lines, and all shapes are added at absolute positions.
This is very different from HTML where the position on a page of a <table>, <tr>, <th>, or <td> is calculated at the moment the page is rendered. In HTML this position can even change when you resize the browser window.
There is no such thing in PDF (except if you use XFA (*), a technology that is deprecated since ISO 32000-2). All content on a page has a fixed position, hardcoded into the page's content stream. Changing the size of the PDF viewer window won't change anything to the position of the page content.
Because of all of this, your question is invalid. It is impossible to create a button in PDF that adds a row to a table, because:
In many cases there is no table: there is just a bunch of text, lines, and shapes at absolute positions,
Even if there is the notion of a table (using Tagged PDF): the visual represenation of that table is fixed at creation time, it can't be changed at consumption time.
You want to use an ordinary PDF viewer as if it were a PDF editor. That is impossible for all the reasons listed above.
(*) XFA was deprecated for different reasons. One of the most important reasons it is the lack of support for XFA. There aren't many viewers that support XFA. If you would post a follow-up question asking *"How can I create an XFA document?", the answer would be: "Don't do this!" Creating XFA is extremely complex, and once you've succeeded in creating an XFA form, you'll discover that many of your customers won't be able to consume the file because their viewer doesn't support the format.
I need to print a PDF/A document with my Java App, which implements iText 2.1.7. When I use a PDF Templates, my app works fine and print the checkbox checked if they satisfy the conditions.
But, when I use PDF/A Templates, my app doesn't fill these checkbox, but they receive the values correctly.
Can anyone help me? I dont know if this problem is in the template or in the code.
Can you describe in more detail what you are doing?
thesis I:
If you have a (non PDF/A) PDF with form fields and then you programmatically change a checkbox value with iText then the change is visible in the PDF (e.g. you can see it in adobe reader and on printed paper)
Correct?
thesis II:
If you have a PDF/A compliant PDF and change the value of a checkbox then the change is not visible in the PDF (neither in adobe reader nor on printed paper)
Correct?
In the PDF format you need to differentiate between the appearance of a field and the (data) value of a field. Normally PDF/A documents are made for long term archiving and not to change values. If you still do that you need to ensure that you also update the appearance of a form field.
Try to update the appearance of the field you change (after you set the new value). You can do that with the following method:
AcroField fields;
boolean success = fields.regenerateField(String yourCheckboxFieldName);
I'm trying to generate an xsl to be printed in a pre-printed sheet which works fine.
Now i want to give the user a better previsualization (in the pdf screen version) adding a background image which emulates the "pre-printed" stuf on the sheet to give the user a "context" of what is he printing.
The question is: Is there any way I can set a background image in xsl (using apache fop) visible only in pdf but not in the printed version of it?
Thank you all for reading or givin any advice.
Although as the comments state, you can't have content in the PDF that does not come out in a physical printed copy, here is one possible work around for you. Depending on how your users are ultimately going to be using FOP for PDF rendering and how your a driving the work flow, it's possible to pass a parameter into an xslt file before the transofrmation phase is run, so potentially, you could do a dual rendering of the same PDF, one that is presented to the user where the background image is enabled, and one that gets printed, you could just set a variable similar to how they do in this Example, and call it something like $isPreview, and just use a simple if or choose statement to check for 'Y' or 'N'.
Since you are sending to a printer, you may even want to take advantage of FOP's ability to generate to Postscript rather than PDF, I've used this feature quite extensively for print documents using FOP while also producing a PDF copy for electronic delivery via email or hosted services, and I've yet to find any discrepancy between the PDF rendering and what is printed after sending a rendered postscript file, so it should work well for you as well.
As I said, this is not truly a solution to your problem as you've presented it, but as a work around, it could get you the desired results if your clever about how you implement it.
I don;t think the statement that it is not possible is true, I am just not sure how to create such a PDF with FOP. Certainly you can add an image field. One would use a button field and place the image in the button. Then you would set the properties of that button to not print (printable false).
PDF support images in fields: https://answers.acrobatusers.com/adding-image-field-form-q41825.aspx
RenderX supports PDF Form fields but I do not see where they support an image inside the button, only text: http://www.renderx.com/reference.html#PDF%20Forms. But they do support setting a field to "printable".
How can I add text to a pdf document, which is not visible?
The document manipulation should be done in java. The usecase is to add further metadata to a document (in a proprietary format, about 40kb), before the document is signed and archived.
I tried:
annotation field with size 0,0
.txt file attachment
but, this annoys readers of the PDF, because they see a difference (comment / attachment bar).
Is there a comment object or a syntax to comment out lines in a PDF document?
EDIT:
I've tried adding text between PDF objects. This works, the problem is: acrobat reader asks to resave the file when closing window.
Adding the text after %EOF is not a solution, because signing is not applied to the metadata, which is a needed feature.
The proper way to add metadata to a PDF would be through XMP. It allows you to add arbitrary metadata and allows defining the metadata types inside of the same PDF file (which you really should do if you're archiving and which is a requirement in archival standards such as PDF/A).
XMP data can be extracted by readers who don't understand the PDF format using a simple text scanning algorithm yet at the same time it will be inside of the document so will be protected by the digital signature you apply.
You can read more about it here: http://www.adobe.com/products/xmp/
I have seen PDF's who had a bunch of metadata in the footer, just in color white while the background was also white, so normally you wouldn't recognize it when you're looking at the PDF. But that's quite nasty..