PDF-Forms is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ __________________________________________________________________
Gentlemen (and Ladies!) Here's some information that might be very helpful to everyone. 1. You CAN fill in a text box of a PDF template from a web application. I do it using the FDF toolkit and submit a form to the web server to fill itself. It's possible that your problem may lie with your database if you're using SQL Server. There are some interesting quirks when using text boxes. 2. When you save a PDF locally, you are only saving the PDF, not the form data within. Think of the form data as an overlay. Now, if you close Acrobat Reader after having filled in the form, and then open up Acrobat Reader again and load the same form, Reader will load the form from the local buffer copy, which means the contents of the form data will also reappear. But, if your refresh or clear the data, it's lost. This isn't really intended to be an actual ability to save, just a buffer of the most recent PDF. You need more than the basic Reader on your client machine to save locally, that's the application - not the SDK, or you must have given rights to the document from the server app - which requires a quite expensive server app from Adobe. 3. Saving a PDF using the FDF Toolkit is acutally two things. One, submit the data to a server, and let server-side code do something with the data such as save it into a database. Two, upload the PDF form document to a web server, where it can be downloaded and displayed. 4. Repopulating a PDF form in your browser using only Adobe Reader can be done by two methods. ONE, create an FDF file (either dynamically or pre-defined) on a server, along with an /F tag and the PDF form's file name. Sending the FDF file to the browswer first loads the data, then the browser asks the web server again for the document after the /F key and displays the document and loads the FDF file data into the document. TWO, load the PDF document into the browser and then executing document-open Acrobat JavaScript that submits the document to a web server and loads the data using the FDF toolkit. -- Neither of these methods requires any server-side PDF applications other than the FREE FDF Toolkit. Of course if you can't program these solutions, some of the third-party utilities mentioned by several other nice folks on this site could assist you. 5. There FDF Toolkit API does work. It also has a few "undocumented features" along with a few bugs. You're talking about a half dozen things along with hundreds of functions and features that work perfectly fine. If you want to use it, you must spend significant time to learn it, and you also must know ASP quite well. After 6 months I became very expert with it, including being able to do two things that Adobe claims flatly cannot be done because they didn't add one feature and the other feature is a bug and doesn't work. It took me an extra three days to do the "impossible". Glenn Graham Nouveau Group, Inc. mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] www.nouveaugroup.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 21:17:03 -0500 From: "Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [PDF-Forms] dynamically creating pdf documents .net PDF-Forms is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ __________________________________________________________________ Hi all I am trying to dynamically fill in the text box of my pdf template from a web application. I am able to create the document and view it. However, when I save the pdf to the local machine I do not see the values I inserted in my template. It tells me that I need the full adobe sdk. Does any one know how I can save this doc? Or if there is another way of creating dynamic pdf documents. The problem I have is that I can use the full adobe sdk to create the doc an the server side. But when the user saves the doc he should be able to view the generated doc with the pdf reader. I am usig vb.net and fdftoolkit Thanks To change your subscription: http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfforms.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:15:41 +0100 From: "Pablo Rito" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [PDF-Forms] Dynamic HTML Form from Pdf PDF-Forms is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ __________________________________________________________________ Hi all I am trying to dynamically create a HTML form with ( INPUT , TEXTAREA ) from a PDF file/form. I have tried pdf2word 1.3 and pdf ripper but the programs ingnores ( INPUT , TEXTAREA etc ) when creating word/html files. Best regrds, Paolo To change your subscription: http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfforms.html ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:18:02 -0600 From: "Greg McFarlane" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: [PDF-Forms] dynamically creating pdf documents .net PDF-Forms is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ __________________________________________________________________ Mike I posted a similar problem the other day. With FDF, you can only save a data file. The PDF template (the 'Form' as they call it) remains blank. It will get populated if you double click on the FDF. It merges and displays the result. You can then save the PDF. Not that this is all interactive. I have not been able to find a way to do it programatically. Acrobat is not meant to act as a server, and I have been told that the license prohibits using it that way. I have not verified the license part. There are 2 solutions I have found that will merge the 2 files. Appligent and ActivePDF. If you are doing this all on one server, the price is reasonable. If you are building a product, bad news. There are 2 other approaches that I have come across, thanks largely in part to people who have responded to me on this list Alternate Approach #1. Have the FDF link to a form that is available on the internet. I think this has a limitation that the user could only view the FDF while he is connected. I need to play with that a little more to be sure. Alternate Approach #2. Create the document in some other application (Word, Crystal Reports, Notepad :-) ) and then use Distiller or some other Print-->PDF tool to create a PDF. There is a product named PDF995 that does this. This cost $9.95. Hence the name. The more people I talk to, the less I feel comfortable basing my functionality on the FDF api. Just my opinion. Hope this helped. It took me a week to get to this point. Hopefully you asked for help quicker than I did. Greg McFarlane 832-526-4915 - ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 8:17 PM Subject: [PDF-Forms] dynamically creating pdf documents .net > > PDF-Forms is a service provided by PDFzone.com | http://www.pdfzone.com/ > __________________________________________________________________ > > Hi all > > I am trying to dynamically fill in the text box of my pdf template from > a web application. > > I am able to create the document and view it. However, when I save the > pdf to the local machine I do not see the values I inserted in my > template. It tells me that I need the full adobe sdk. Does any one know > how I can save this doc? > > Or if there is another way of creating dynamic pdf documents. The > problem I have is that I can use the full adobe sdk to create the doc an > the server side. But when the user saves the doc he should be able to > view the generated doc with the pdf reader. > > I am usig vb.net and fdftoolkit > > Thanks > > To change your subscription: > http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfforms.html > > To change your subscription: http://www.pdfzone.com/discussions/lists-pdfforms.html
