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Fillable PDF's

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    Fillable PDF's

    I am wondering whether anyone used Alpha to populate fillable PDF's, i.e. programmatically enter information into a PDF such as those you download from the government.

    I see iTextSharp http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/Fil...ldsOfPDFs.aspx which may be a possible solution. It is available free of charge.

    Garry

    #2
    Re: Fillable PDF's

    Hi Gary,

    You can make the PDF as a backdrop to a form and then place all the fields where needed.

    The real trick is to print out the PDF with all the data in the correct places.

    The best way I have found is to save your Letter as PDF and then merge the two together as the final document. Reports can be trickier as the number of child items could be an issue. All can be done with Action Scripting.
    Regards
    Keith Hubert
    Alpha Guild Member
    London.
    KHDB Management Systems
    Skype = keith.hubert


    For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Fillable PDF's

      Keith,
      Thank you for your suggestion.
      I have scanned and used images as a backdrop in the past (child records will not be an issue in this case) and also built forms that look like the original PDF which is extremely time consuming.
      Pushing data into a PDF is possible (see VeryPDF Form Filler US$699 for developer license) but I am hoping to find a lower cost solution.
      All suggestions welcome.
      Garry

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Fillable PDF's

        Hi Garry,

        Originally posted by Garry Flanigan View Post
        I am wondering whether anyone used Alpha to populate fillable PDF's, i.e. programmatically enter information into a PDF such as those you download from the government.

        I see iTextSharp http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/Fil...ldsOfPDFs.aspx which may be a possible solution. It is available free of charge.
        I created functions a long time ago to use from Gnostice a purchased developer active X control that allowed filling in and manipulation of many objects of a PDF.
        Regards,

        Ira J. Perlow
        Computer Systems Design


        CSDA A5 Products
        New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
        CSDA Barcode Functions

        CSDA Code Utility
        CSDA Screen Capture


        Comment


          #5
          Re: Fillable PDF's

          As Keith has mentioned, the easiest way is to merge the two documents using an A5 script.

          Example
          Code:
          :report.saveas("example","pdf","urn=1","","c:\example.pdf",.f.)
          pdf_merge("c:\example.pdf","c:\Questionnaire_Base.pdf")
          This takes a report called EXAMPLE, queries a field called URN with a value of 1 and saves it to a PDF file called example.pdf.

          The PDF_MERGE command takes this newly created doc and merges it with the second PDF file.

          But there is a lot of trial and error involved with lining up the fields. I generally only use it to drop a barcode or URN into a document. A big multi page many multi field doc would probably be very tricky (but not impossible) to create.
          Chris Tanti
          Technical Support

          Nuance & Fathom Ltd - The data-driven marketing agency

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Fillable PDF's

            Some years ago, we had found the fdf toolkit from adobe http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/fdftoolkit.html which worked very well - monthly tax declaration.
            So we modified the text file (extension fdf) and called the pdf file and saved the new file as pdf included all data.
            I developed application with Lotus Approach. Some month later, die PDF was modified from the tax office, so no chance for the fdf data - to easy I guess .

            Cornelius

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Fillable PDF's

              Hello Ira,
              Gnostice seems a reasonable choice.
              Is it an ocx control?
              Garry

              Comment


                #8
                Re: Fillable PDF's

                Hi Garry,

                Originally posted by Garry Flanigan View Post
                Gnostice seems a reasonable choice.
                Is it an ocx control?
                The extension is ocx, so I assume so. I think you can download it and it will just leave a watermark on the final pdf until you purchase it if I remember correctly.
                Regards,

                Ira J. Perlow
                Computer Systems Design


                CSDA A5 Products
                New - Free CSDA DiagInfo - v1.39, 30 Apr 2013
                CSDA Barcode Functions

                CSDA Code Utility
                CSDA Screen Capture


                Comment


                  #9
                  Re: Fillable PDF's

                  Any updates or a possibility of include this function in the next version?

                  Ok...Why is it so hard to have a fillable pdf to work in Alpha 5 when the fillable fields match what is in the Alpha 5 DB.

                  Why can't Alpha 5 pass the fields into the fillable pdf doc and print it?

                  It should be a common task. Seems like there are a few people looking to use that ability.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Re: Fillable PDF's

                    I do not see it as a common task. Normally one would run a report within Alpha and fill in the values and save the report as a pdf. But sometimes others (like the governemnt) create pdfs that are so complex it takes hours to build a report layout in Alpha that looks the same (assuming you enter all text, lines, images, etc. rather than scan in an image of the form), so then it would be nice to fill in the supplied pdf via ocx.
                    Chris Tanti has mentioned a solution that works for him, but I am not sure whether this will always work as it depends on what the end user is doing with the pdf.

                    Comment

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