Re: Filling out PDF forms with data from DBI?

Hi Randal,

I knew a friend that did something similar.

The basic steps of what you'll need to do are as follows:

Get the (free) Acrobat SDK: http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/acrosdk/main.html
Read the documentation in the SDK for help on creating an FDF file using HTML forms.
Once you create an FDF, you'll use that as the file to serve to your visitors (which will display the merged PDF).
The PDF template can have separate buttons for "Print Me" and "Submit Me"

HOWEVER: if your users only have Acrobat Reader, they will not be able to save the pre-populated PDF to their computer. (if they have the full Acrobat, I believe they can).

(Alternatively, you can pay $2k - $3k for a program called PDFMerge which will actually merge the FDF with the PDF into a file your users can save . . . .)

Comment on Re: Filling out PDF forms with data from DBI?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re^2: Filling out PDF forms with data from DBI? by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Jun 21, 2006 at 21:59 UTC
The utterance, `$ perl -MPDF::API2 -MData::Dumper -e'my $pdf = PDF::API2->open("fw9.pd +f"); my $res = PDF::API2::Resource->new_api($pdf); print Dumper($res) +'` [download] produces, among much else, the string: `'This form has document rights applied to it. These rights allow anyo +ne completing this form, with the free Adobe Reader, to save their fi +lled-in form locally.'` [download] I have no idea whether that's really true. After Compline, Zaxo	[reply] [d/l] [select]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re^2: Filling out PDF forms with data from DBI?
by Zaxo (Archbishop) on Jun 21, 2006 at 21:59 UTC

The utterance,

$ perl -MPDF::API2 -MData::Dumper -e'my $pdf = PDF::API2->open("fw9.pd
+f"); my $res = PDF::API2::Resource->new_api($pdf); print Dumper($res)
+'
[download]

'This form has document rights applied to it.  These rights allow anyo
+ne completing this form, with the free Adobe Reader, to save their fi
+lled-in form locally.'
[download]

After Compline,
Zaxo

[reply]
[d/l]
[select]