Open and Fill Pre-existing PDF

Open and Fill Pre-existing PDF

Posted by: mchandler2 on 16 March 2020, 7:15 am EST

• 

  mchandler2

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  Posted 16 March 2020, 7:15 am EST

  I am evaluating Documents for PDF.

  I have successfully created a PDF “template” with Documents for PDF. I then opened this template, filled the form fields and saved it with a different name.

  However, our project requires that I be able to open a PDF template that was created with Adobe Acrobat, fill the form fields and save it. I have tried to do this with Documents for PDF, but it doesn’t seem to recognize the form fields. There was not a fields collection to iterate through.

  Is Documents for PDF able to open a PDF that was created by Adobe Acrobat and iterate through the form fields and fill them out? If so, please direct me to a code example of this.

  Thank you for your help.

• 

  prabhat.sharma

  

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  Posted 16 March 2020, 6:05 pm EST

  Hello Mary,

  To further investigate, we need your PDF file with which you are facing the issue. It will help us to assist you in a better way.

  Regards,
  
  Prabhat Sharma.

• 

  dmitry.yaitskov

  

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  Posted 18 March 2020, 2:22 am EST

  Hi,

  Your form probably contains nested fields, to iterate through all fields in such a form you can use code similar to this:

  
  using (FileStream fs = new FileStream("Form.pdf", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read))
  {
      GcPdfDocument doc = new GcPdfDocument();
      doc.Load(fs);
      printFields(doc.AcroForm.Fields);
      return;
  
      void printFields(FieldCollection fields)
      {
          foreach (var f in fields)
          {
              Console.WriteLine($"Found field {f.Name}");
              printFields(f.Children);
          }
      }
  }
  
  

  Please let me know if this helps.

  Dmitry.

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  mchandler2

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 12:19 am EST

  Unfortunately, this did not help. However, one of your competitors has an easy to use product that works great.

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  dmitry.yaitskov

  

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 1:35 am EST

  Could you explain in what way it did not help? I ran the code I posted on the actual PDF form that you sent to our support, and it did iterate through all the fields in it. So I’d very much like to understand what part of it did not help.

  Cheers.

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  mchandler2

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 2:07 am EST

  Please use the attached file and post the names of the fields in this PDF. When I run your code below I get the following results. These results are incorrect. I am curious to see the names of the fields that you say you can get.

  Dim doc = New GcPdfDocument()
  
  Using fs = New FileStream(msSampleFileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read)
  
  doc.Load(fs)
  
  For Each fld In doc.AcroForm.Fields
  
  ’ Find the field name
  
  Debug.Print(fld.Name)
  
  For Each f In fld.Children
  
  Debug.Print(f.Name)
  
  Next
  
  Next
  
  doc.Clear()
  
  End Using

  This is result:
  
  topmostSubform[0]
  
  Page1[0]
  
  Page2[0]

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  dmitry.yaitskov

  

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 2:35 am EST

  Hi,

  Unlike the code I posted, your code only goes down one level. You need to recurse into those pages. Here is the complete code that enumerates all fields:

  
  Imports System
  Imports System.IO
  Imports GrapeCity.Documents.Pdf
  Imports GrapeCity.Documents.Pdf.AcroForms
  
  Module Program
      Sub Main(args As String())
          Using fs = New FileStream("SampleForm.pdf", FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read)
              Dim doc = New GcPdfDocument()
              doc.Load(fs)
              EnumFields(doc.AcroForm.Fields)
          End Using
      End Sub
  
      Sub EnumFields(fields As FieldCollection)
          For Each f In fields
              Console.WriteLine(f.Name)
              EnumFields(f.Children)
          Next
      End Sub
  End Module
  
  

  and here’s what it prints on your file:

  
  topmostSubform[0]
  Page1[0]
  f1_01[0]
  f1_02[0]
  f1_03[0]
  f1_04[0]
  f1_05[0]
  f1_06[0]
  f1_07[0]
  f1_08[0]
  c1_1[0]
  c1_1[1]
  f1_09[0]
  f1_10[0]
  f1_11[0]
  f1_12[0]
  f1_13[0]
  f1_14[0]
  f1_15[0]
  f1_16[0]
  f1_17[0]
  f1_18[0]
  f1_19[0]
  f1_20[0]
  f1_21[0]
  f1_22[0]
  Page2[0]
  c2_1[0]
  c2_1[1]
  f2_01[0]
  f2_02[0]
  f2_03[0]
  c2_2[0]
  c2_2[1]
  f2_04[0]
  f2_05[0]
  f2_06[0]
  f2_07[0]
  f2_08[0]
  f2_09[0]
  f2_10[0]
  f2_11[0]
  f2_12[0]
  f2_13[0]
  f2_14[0]
  f2_15[0]
  f2_16[0]
  f2_17[0]
  f2_18[0]
  f2_19[0]
  f2_20[0]
  f2_21[0]
  f2_22[0]
  f2_23[0]
  f2_24[0]
  f2_25[0]
  
  

  Hope this helps.

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  mchandler2

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 2:39 am EST

  Thank you.

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  dmitry.yaitskov

  

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 2:42 am EST

  You’re very welcome. I’ll mark this as answered then if you don’t mind. Please let me know if you have any other questions.

  Cheers.

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  mchandler2

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 2:57 am EST - Updated 29 September 2022, 11:14 pm EST

  I cannot field the FieldCollection in GrapeCity.Documents. I checked the following namespaces:
  
  GrapeCity.Documents.Common
  
  GrapeCity.Documents.Drawing
  
  GrapeCity.Documents.Imaging
  
  GrapeCity.Documents.Pdf
  
  GrapeCity.Documents.Text

  I don’t see any other namespaces available in what I downloaded from NuGet.

  The instructions said to search for and install GrapeCity.Documents.Pdf. I did this and NuGet also installed GrapeCity.Documents.Common and GrapeCity.Documents.Imaging. Please tell me which of these contains FieldCollection. It seems I don’t have everything I need.

  

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  mchandler2

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 2:59 am EST

  Nevermind. I found it.

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  dmitry.yaitskov

  

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  Posted 19 March 2020, 3:01 am EST

  Sorry, clicked ‘post’ just as your message appeared

  You have all the necessary assemblies. The PDF OM is very large, so some types are in namespaces nested inside GrapeCity.Documents.Pdf, in particular the form related types are in GrapeCity.Documents.Pdf.AcroForms - note the following import in my code snippet:

  Imports GrapeCity.Documents.Pdf.AcroForms

  Thanks.

• 

  soledad

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  Posted 23 April 2020, 6:30 am EST

  I have ASP.NET Web Application.
  
  Our clients need the ability to upload fillable pre- existing PDF documents for their users.
  
  These users need to be able to open (or view) this PDF fill and saved them back.
  
  Does this product allow me to do this on ASP.NET Web Applications? and more important without the need of they to install anything except for my application.

  We don’t have the control of the files they could upload

• 

  manish.gupta

  

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  Posted 23 April 2020, 4:16 pm EST

  Hello,
  
  In the latest release of PDFViewer, we have form edit and save support. Please refer to the following demo sample for reference:
  
  https://www.grapecity.com/documents-api-pdf/demos/gc-pdf-viewer/viewer-edit-all/pdf-cs

  Regards,
  
  Manish Gupta