Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Back in the 80's, I had an expense account, but this is government. We have a hard time buying pencils :(

[MoGrace]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Tell them you bought me lunch and put it on your expense account!

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

I've tested the Free download of PDfill, and it seems to be able to do what I need. Now all I need to do is to get the agency to fork over the $20 to purchase the product.

Thanks, Robin.

Tom

[DaveM]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

There are a couple more I use as well, but not for what you need.
pdf Lightning
pdf factory

Not sure if either would help you though.

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Thanks, I'll look into PDFill.

[MoGrace]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

In my case, I am printing a form for an employee's file. I use a temp table to gather the employee data into a xls file that creates the flat file PDFill uses to fill and print the form behind the scene. A button could be added to email the temporary file.

Here's my form that fills in a 2 page PDF form:

dlse_fill.jpg

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Robin,

Do you mean that you populate a PDF from Alpha?

The PDF is pre-defined with Fill-in fields. I need to push data from an Alpha application into the fields on the PDF, then save it as..., then e-mail the document.

Tom

[MoGrace]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Tom,
If you go with PDFill, I can work up an example I can send you of how I do it.

[pboomwork]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Take a look at the program PDF Form Filler; it should do what you want to do. Available from https://www.pdfill.com/pdf_form_filler.html.
It is a standalone Windows Application for dealing with PDF Forms. It allows the form field data to be exported and imported.
The registered version only $19.95 has command lines for importing text into the PDF fields. See the very end of page referenced above for this information.

Another good source of low-cost Pdf Utilities is http://www.a-pdf.com/ They have a utility to extract the fill data but not one to import it back into the PDF.

For creating PDFs with fillable form fields in the first place, LibreOffice is one of the best tools out there. I've tried making these forms with Microsoft Word and even Word 2016 doesn't appear to create PDF's with fillable fields.

[Allen Klimeck]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Yes but after you fill in the pdf you do the export to get the file layout so that you can change the data and import to fill in the fields.

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

There is no filled in data in the PDF. It has fill-in fields. Like I said in my last post, it is very much like a Document Template in Word.

[Allen Klimeck]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

If you have a filled in copy of the PDF in your PDF editing program you should be able to export the data to an xml format. Then you would have to rebuild the xml data with the data you need to import into your PDF. From your PDF editing program choose to import the xml data.

I don't think it can all be done it Alpha.

Allen

[Tom Henkel]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Thanks, Dave.

This is one of those fill-and-print PDF documents, very similar to a Word Template. I'm thinking there's got to be some way to do either a dde or OLE or even activeX operation to populate it.

[DaveM]

Re: Populate a PDF with Alpha Data

Back from crystal reports:
1 way: we pasted an image of the file and filled it with the fields and then sent/printed tha
2 way: we pasted an image of the file and filled it with the fields, then removed the image. Then it was a few adjustments to print the hard copy.

Not having done exactly what you are, I can only hope I helped.

[Tom Henkel]

We have a situation where we need to populate a PDF "template" with information from one of our systems. This form is fairly complex, and I really don't want to re-create it as a letter or report.

If it were a Word .dot file, then I could use dde poke to fill the proper fields on the template, but this is the first time I'm trying to work with a PDF.

My goal is to complete the necessary fields, save the pdf, then e-mail it to the appropriate party, all with the click of ONE button. I have the data, I know the e-mail process, now all I need is a method to fill the document.

Does anyone know of a way to accomplish what I would like to do?

Thanks,

Tom