Develop Reference

Fill out field for pdf revision when signing with PDFbox

I am trying to add input to my existing field in a pdf that should be signed at the end. I used the library from swisscom (https://github.com/SwisscomTrustServices/pdfbox-ais-client/blob/8d52c759ade267b0c443fcd6f15bc9635c745d72/src/main/java/com/swisscom/ais/client/impl/PdfDocument.java#L97) with PDFbox (v2.0.24) and added these lines
try {
PDAcroForm acroForm = pdDocument.getDocumentCatalog().getAcroForm();
acroForm.setSignaturesExist(true);
acroForm.setAppendOnly(true);
acroForm.getCOSObject().setDirect(true);
acroForm.getCOSObject().setNeedToBeUpdated(true);
FieldInput[] fields = new FieldInput[1];
COSObject pdfFields = acroForm.getCOSObject().getCOSObject(COSName.FIELDS);
if (pdfFields != null) {
pdfFields.setNeedToBeUpdated(true);
}
fields[0] = new FieldInput("1", "foobar");
for (int i = 0; i < fields.length; i++) {
PDField field = acroForm.getField(fields[0].id);
if (field != null) {
field.setValue(fields[0].value);
Log.info("set field: " + field.getFullyQualifiedName());
}
}
pdDocument.getDocumentCatalog().getCOSObject().setNeedToBeUpdated(true);
} catch (Exception e) {
Log.warn(e);
}
I get the log output that the field was set, but in the final document the field is still empty. Using this answer from PDFBox 2.0 create signature field and save incremental with already signed document was no luck for me, I think I messed up the form handling since pdfFields is null.
Update:
I added the suggestion from Tilman, now the entry gets set with
field.getCOSObject().setNeedToBeUpdated(true);
But when looking at the signature I have no information which fields are filled out:
Is it possible with pdfbox to achieve the same output as AdobeSign like where you can store more detailed information in the revision metadata? I am not able to open the file with itext rups because the pdf gets locked with a password at the end....
And what would be the best way to look the fields when everyone is done (so the fields are not shown as editable fields anymore):
setting a lock like in Adobe
setting some protection after the field was filled

The update flag must be set on the field itself
field.getCOSObject().setNeedToBeUpdated(true);
and on the appearance of the widget of the field
field.getWidgets().get(0).getAppearance().getCOSObject().setNeedToBeUpdated(true);
(this assumes that the field is its own widget and that there is only one)
It might still work if the second code part is missing because Adobe Reader updates the appearance when displaying.

get all acrosfields avalibles in a pdf document itext7

I am trying to automatize the modification of an pdf template according to some data computing (using Java)
I have no experience with pdf modification and I am being trying to use itext7 to do this.
I have been reading how to add text to a pdf and even here I saw how to field Acrosfield if they exist using a "key"
Nevertheless, I didn't made the pdf template I am using (which is modifiable) so I don't know if the fields with you can manually fill are made with Acrosfields or another tecnology and I don'w know what are the keys or each field If they have one...
I saw this question; where it is says how to get all the fields and their values but when I try the code that appear in the only answer I get;
main.java:[40,0] error: illegal start of type
main.java:[40,19] error: ')' expected
main.java:[40,30] error: <identifier> expected
3 errors
In this part:
for (String fldName : fldNames) {
System.out.println( fldName + ": " + fields.getField( fldName ) );
}
After try a bit, I have been finding more information but I can't find a way to get these "keys" if it's possible...
------- EDIT -------
I've made this code in order to make a copy of my pdf-template which have the name of the Acrosfield's key in each field:
package novgenrs;
import com.itextpdf.text.DocumentException;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.AcroFields;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfReader;
import com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfStamper;
import java.io.FileOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Set;
public class MakePDF {
public static void MakePDF(String[] args) throws IOException, DocumentException{
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader("template.pdf");
PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, new FileOutputStream("result.pdf"));
//AcroFields form = stamper.getAcroFields();
AcroFields fields = reader.getAcroFields();
AcroFields wrt = stamper.getAcroFields();
Set<String> fldNames = fields.getFields().keySet();
for (String fldName : fldNames) {
wrt.setField(fldName, fldName) ;
}
stamper.close();
reader.close();
}
}
NOTE: this only work with itext5. For some reason when I tried to do this with itext7 I couldn't made it work so I tried to do it with itext5 and it worked!

If you want a full answer to your question, you will have to provide the PDF so that we can inspect it, but these are already some answers that will get you in the right direction.
When you refer to How to fill out a pdf file programmatically? (AcroForm technology), you refer to the iText 7 version of How to fill out a pdf file programmatically? (AcroForm technology) which is the answer to the same question, but for developers who use iText 5. As you can see, there's a big difference between iText 5 and iText 7.
However, when you refer to How do I get all the fields and value from a PDF file using iText? you get an answer that is to be used with iText 5 only. If you are using iText 7, that code won't work because it's iText 5 code.
The code you need can be found here: How to get specific types from AcroFields? Like PushButtonField, RadioCheckField, etc
PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(src);
PdfDocument pdfDoc = new PdfDocument(reader);
// Get the fields from the reader (read-only!!!)
PdfAcroForm form = PdfAcroForm.getAcroForm(pdfDoc, true);
// Loop over the fields and get info about them
Set<String> fields = form.getFormFields().keySet();
for (String key : fields) {
writer.print(key + ": ");
PdfName type = form.getField(key).getFormType();
if (0 == PdfName.Btn.compareTo(type)) {
if(((PdfButtonFormField)form.getField(key)).isPushButton()){
writer.println("Pushbutton");
} else {
if(((PdfButtonFormField)form.getField(key)).isRadio()){
writer.println("Radiobutton");
}else {
writer.println("Checkbox");
}
}
} else if (0 == PdfName.Ch.compareTo(type)) {
writer.println("Choicebox");
} else if (0 == PdfName.Sig.compareTo(type)) {
writer.println("Signature");
} else if (0 == PdfName.Tx.compareTo(type)) {
writer.println("Text");
}else {
writer.println("?");
}
}
This code will loop over all the fields, and write the key to the System.out, as well as the type of field that corresponds with that key. You can also use RUPS to inspect your PDF.
You mention:
main.java:[40,0] error: illegal start of type
main.java:[40,19] error: ')' expected
main.java:[40,30] error: <identifier> expected
It isn't clear to me if this is a compiler error or a run-time error.
If it's a compiler error, you are simply missing a ) somewhere, in which case your problem is totally unrelated to iText (which is what I suspect: you just have a very simple programming error).
If it's a run-time error, there is something wrong with your PDF. In PDF, a string is delimited by parentheses. Maybe a bracket is missing somewhere in your PDF (but I doubt that: you'd get a different type of error).
In short: try a good IDE, and that IDE will tell give you an indication of where a parenthesis is missing. If you don't find that location immediately, clean up your code by adding indentation and spaces. That should make it clear where you forget a ).

Change order pages of PDF document in iTextSharp

I'm trying to change reorder pages of my PDF document, but i can't and I don't know why.
I read several articals about changing order, it's java(iText) and i have got few problems with it.(exampl1, exampl2, example3). This example on c#, but there is using other method(exampl4)
I want take my TOC on 12 page and put to 2 page. After 12 page I have other content. This is my template for change order of pages:
String.Format("1,%s, 2-%s, %s-%s", toc, toc-1, toc+1, n)
This is my method for changing order of pages:
public void ChangePageOrder(string path)
{
MemoryStream baos = new MemoryStream();
PdfReader sourcePDFReader = new PdfReader(path);
int toc = 12;
int n = sourcePDFReader.NumberOfPages;
sourcePDFReader.SelectPages(String.Format("1,%s, 2-%s, %s-%s", toc, toc-1, toc+1, n));
using (var fs = new FileStream(path, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.ReadWrite))
{
PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(sourcePDFReader, fs);
stamper.Close();
}
}
Here is call to method:
...
doc.Close();
ChangePageOrder(filePath);
What am I doing not right?
Thank you.

Your code can't work because you are using path to create the PdfReader as well as to create the FileStream. You probably get an error such as "The file is in use" or "The file can't be accessed".
This is explained here:
StackOverflow: How to update a PDF without creating a new PDF?
Official web site:
How to update a PDF without creating a new PDF?
You create a MemoryStream() named baos, but you aren't using that object anywhere. One way to solve your problem, is to replace the FileStream when you first create your PDF by that MemoryStream, and then use the bytes stored in that memory stream to create a PdfReader instance. In that case, PdfStamper won't be writing to a file that is in use.
Another option would be to use a different path. For instance: first you write the document to a file named my_story_unordered.pdf (created by PdfWriter), then you write the document to a file named my_story_reordered.pdf (created by PdfStamper).
It's also possible to create the final document in one go. In that case, you need to switch to linear mode. There's an example in my book "iText in Action - Second Edition" that shows how to do this: MovieHistory1
In the C# port of this example, you have:
writer.SetLinearPageMode();
In normal circumstances, iText will create a page tree with branches and leaves. As soon a a branch has more than 10 leaves, a new branch is created. With setLinearPageMode(), you tell iText not to do this. The complete page tree will consist of one branch with nothing but leaves (no extra branches). This is bad from the point of view of performance when viewing the document, but it's acceptable if the number of pages in your document is limited.
Once you've switched to page mode, you can reorder the pages like this:
document.NewPage();
// get the total number of pages that needs to be reordered
int total = writer.ReorderPages(null);
// change the order
int[] order = new int[total];
for (int i = 0; i < total; i++) {
order[i] = i + toc;
if (order[i] > total) {
order[i] -= total;
}
}
// apply the new order
writer.ReorderPages(order);
Summarized: if your document doesn't have many pages, use the ReorderPages method. If your document has many pages, use the method you've been experimenting with, but do it correctly. Don't try to write to the file that you are still trying to read.

Without going into details about what you should do you can loop through all pages from a pdf, put them into a new pdf doc with all the pages. You can put your logic inside the for loop.
reader = new PdfReader(sourcePDFpath);
sourceDocument = new Document(reader.GetPageSizeWithRotation(startpage));
pdfCopyProvider = new PdfCopy(sourceDocument, new System.IO.FileStream(outputPDFpath, System.IO.FileMode.Create));
sourceDocument.Open();
for (int i = startpage; i <= endpage; i++)
{
importedPage = pdfCopyProvider.GetImportedPage(reader, i);
pdfCopyProvider.AddPage(importedPage);
}
sourceDocument.Close();
reader.Close();

How to edit MS Word documents using Java?

I do have few Word templates, and my requirement is to replace some of the words/place holders in the document based on the user input, using Java. I tried lot of libraries including 2-3 versions of docx4j but nothing work well, they all just didn't do anything!
I know this question has been asked before, but I tried all options I know. So, using what java library I can "really" replace/edit these templates? My preference goes to the "easy to use / Few line of codes" type libraries.
I am using Java 8 and my MS Word templates are in MS Word 2007.
Update
This code is written by using the code sample provided by SO member Joop Eggen
public Main() throws URISyntaxException, IOException, ParserConfigurationException, SAXException
{
URI docxUri = new URI("C:/Users/Yohan/Desktop/yohan.docx");
Map<String, String> zipProperties = new HashMap<>();
zipProperties.put("encoding", "UTF-8");
FileSystem zipFS = FileSystems.newFileSystem(docxUri, zipProperties);
Path documentXmlPath = zipFS.getPath("/word/document.xml");
DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
factory.setNamespaceAware(true);
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc = builder.parse(Files.newInputStream(documentXmlPath));
byte[] content = Files.readAllBytes(documentXmlPath);
String xml = new String(content, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
//xml = xml.replace("#DATE#", "2014-09-24");
xml = xml.replace("#NAME#", StringEscapeUtils.escapeXml("Sniper"));
content = xml.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
Files.write(documentXmlPath, content);
}
However this returns the below error
java.nio.file.ProviderNotFoundException: Provider "C" Not found
at: java.nio.file.FileSystems.newFileSystem(FileSystems.java:341) at java.nio.file.FileSystems.newFileSystem(FileSystems.java:341)
at java.nio.fileFileSystems.newFileSystem(FileSystems.java:276)

One may use for docx (a zip with XML and other files) a java zip file system and XML or text processing.
URI docxUri = ,,, // "jar:file:/C:/... .docx"
Map<String, String> zipProperties = new HashMap<>();
zipProperties.put("encoding", "UTF-8");
try (FileSystem zipFS = FileSystems.newFileSystem(docxUri, zipProperties)) {
Path documentXmlPath = zipFS.getPath("/word/document.xml");
When using XML:
DocumentBuilderFactory factory = DocumentBuilderFactory.newInstance();
factory.setNamespaceAware(true);
DocumentBuilder builder = factory.newDocumentBuilder();
Document doc = builder.parse(Files.newInputStream(documentXmlPath));
//Element root = doc.getDocumentElement();
You can then use XPath to find the places, and write the XML back again.
It even might be that you do not need XML but could replace place holders:
byte[] content = Files.readAllBytes(documentXmlPath);
String xml = new String(content, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
xml = xml.replace("#DATE#", "2014-09-24");
xml = xml.replace("#NAME#", StringEscapeUtils.escapeXml("Sniper")));
...
content = xml.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
Files.delete(documentXmlPath);
Files.write(documentXmlPath, content);
For a fast development, rename a copy of the .docx to a name with the .zip file extension, and inspect the files.
File.write should already apply StandardOpenOption.TRUNCATE_EXISTING, but I have added Files.delete as some error occured. See comments.

Try Apache POI. POI can work with doc and docx, but docx is more documented therefore support of it better.
UPD: You can use XDocReport, which use POI. Also I recomend to use xlsx for templates because it more suitable and more documented

I have spent a few days on this issue, until I found that what makes the difference is the try-with-resources on the FileSystem instance, appearing in Joop Eggen's snippet but not in question snippet:
try (FileSystem zipFS = FileSystems.newFileSystem(docxUri, zipProperties))
Without such try-with-resources block, the FileSystem resource will not be closed (as explained in Java tutorial), and the word document not modified.

Stepping back a bit, there are about 4 different approaches for editing words/placeholders:
MERGEFIELD or DOCPROPERTY fields (if you are having problems with this in docx4j, then you have probably not set up your input docx correctly)
content control databinding
variable replacement on the document surface (either at the DOM/SAX level, or using a library)
do stuff as XHTML, then import that
Before choosing one, you should decide whether you also need to be able to handle:
repeating data (eg adding table rows)
conditional content (eg entire paragraphs which will either be present or absent)
adding images
If you need these, then MERGEFIELD or DOCPROPERTY fields are probably out (though you can also use IF fields, if you can find a library which supports them). And adding images makes DOM/SAX manipulation as advocated in one of the other answers, messier and error prone.
The other things to consider are:
your authors: how technical are they? What does that imply for the authoring UI?
the "user input" you mention for variable replacement, is this given, or is obtaining it part of the problem you are solving?

Please try this to edit or replace the word in document
public class UpdateDocument {
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
UpdateDocument obj = new UpdateDocument();
obj.updateDocument(
"c:\\test\\template.docx",
"c:\\test\\output.docx",
"Piyush");
}
private void updateDocument(String input, String output, String name)
throws IOException {
try (XWPFDocument doc = new XWPFDocument(
Files.newInputStream(Paths.get(input)))
) {
List<XWPFParagraph> xwpfParagraphList = doc.getParagraphs();
//Iterate over paragraph list and check for the replaceable text in each paragraph
for (XWPFParagraph xwpfParagraph : xwpfParagraphList) {
for (XWPFRun xwpfRun : xwpfParagraph.getRuns()) {
String docText = xwpfRun.getText(0);
//replacement and setting position
docText = docText.replace("${name}", name);
xwpfRun.setText(docText, 0);
}
}
// save the docs
try (FileOutputStream out = new FileOutputStream(output)) {
doc.write(out);
}
}
}
}

Apache POI: find characters in Word document without spaces

I want to read the number of characters without spaces in a Word document using Apache POI.
I can get the number of characters with spaces using the SummaryInformation.getCharCount() method as in the following code:
public void countCharacters() throws FileNotFoundException, IOException {
File wordFile = new File(BASE_PATH, "test.doc");
POIFSFileSystem p = new POIFSFileSystem(new FileInputStream(wordFile));
HWPFDocument doc = new HWPFDocument(p);
SummaryInformation props = doc.getSummaryInformation();
int numOfCharsWithSpaces = props.getCharCount();
System.out.println(numOfCharsWithSpaces);
}
However there seems to be no method for returning the number of characters without spaces.
How do I find this value?

If you want to base this on the metadata of the document, all you will get is estimates (according to the Microsoft specs). There are essentially two values which you can play around with:
GKPIDSI_CHARCOUNT (which is what you already accessed in your own code sample)
GKPIDDSI_CCHWITHSPACES
Don't ask me about the exact differences of those two values, though. I haven't designed this stuff...
Below is a code sample to illustrate the access to them (GKPIDDSI_CCHWITHSPACES is a little awkward):
HWPFDocument document = [...];
SummaryInformation summaryInformation = document.getSummaryInformation();
System.out.println("GKPIDSI_CHARCOUNT: " + summaryInformation.getCharCount());
DocumentSummaryInformation documentSummaryInformation = document.getDocumentSummaryInformation();
Integer count = null;
for (Property property : documentSummaryInformation.getProperties()) {
if (property.getID() == 0x11) {
count = (Integer) property.getValue();
break;
}
}
System.out.println("GKPIDDSI_CCHWITHSPACES: " + count);
The moment at which Word's internal algorithm that updates those values kicks in is rather unpredictable to me. So what you see in Word's own statistics may not necessarily be the same as when running the above code.