https://github.com/pjones/pdf-fdf

Library and command line tool for generating FDFs
https://github.com/pjones/pdf-fdf

Last synced: 4 months ago
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Library and command line tool for generating FDFs

• Host: GitHub
• URL: https://github.com/pjones/pdf-fdf
• Owner: pjones
• License: other
• Created: 2012-04-27T21:29:30.000Z (about 13 years ago)
• Default Branch: master
• Last Pushed: 2012-04-27T21:30:00.000Z (about 13 years ago)
• Last Synced: 2025-01-31T12:03:00.992Z (4 months ago)
• Language: Ruby
• Size: 85 KB
• Stars: 8
• Watchers: 2
• Forks: 1
• Open Issues: 0
• Metadata Files:
  • Readme: README.md
  • License: LICENSE.md

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README

        
# PDF-FDF

PDF-FDF is a Ruby library and command line tool (`pdffdf`) to help

generate the FDF files necessary to fill out forms present in PDFs.

It's especially useful in conjunction with the [pdftk] tool.

[pdftk]: http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/

## Typical Workflow

In the following examples the file `input.pdf` is the original PDF

with form fields, `output.pdf` will be the generated PDF with form

fields filled out.

  1. Create a YAML file that contains all the form fields:

        pdftk input.pdf dump_data_fields | pdffdf -ln > fields.yml

     This will generate a YAML file that contains all the form fields.

     Additionally each field will be given a unique value starting

     with 0 so that you can visually identify the form fields in a

     test PDF.

  2. Generate a test PDF so you can figure out which form fields have

     which names:

        pdffdf -g fields.yml > test.fdf

        pdftk input.pdf fill_form test.fdf output output.pdf flatten

  3. Open the `test.pdf` file and the `fields.yml` file.  Using the

     `test.pdf` file as a guide give a meaningful name in the `alias`

     field for each of the form fields you care about.

  4. Remove the generated form field values:

        grep -v ' value:' fields.yml > master.yml

  5. Fill out values for the form fields.  You can set the values

     directly in the `master.yml` file however I recommend that you

     create a new YAML file that only contains the fields you are

     interested in filling out.  PDF-FDF can merge an unlimited number

     of YAML files into a single form field set.  For this example

     we'll say that you created a new file called `myfields.yml` that

     is based on the `master.yml` file.  Also note that in your

     `myfields.yml` file you only need to specify two keys for each

     form field: `alias` and `value`.  The other values will be found

     while merging with `master.yml`.

  6. Create your filled out PDF:

        pdffdf -g master.yml myfields.yml > form.fdf

        pdftk input.pdf fill_form form.fdf output output.pdf flatten