using LiveCycle server to fill out an existing PDF

[ShawnMolloy]

Hello,

I'm researching a way to auto fill fields in an existing PDF File PROGRAMATICALLY - for example the First and Last names of a user, using javascript or .net

Is this what LiveCycle server was intendeted for?

Or at least one of its intended purposes?

We just bought Acrobat Pro to accomplish this goal. Was this a mistake?

So my questions are:

- Will Acrobat do this for us?

- Will LiveCycle do this for us?

- Is there a FREE alternative to build a PDF auto filler?

Thank you for your help in advance.

--shawn

[Former Community Member]

Shawn:

Using iText or iTextSharp (.net) products, FREE, you can create FDF data for pre-filling Adobe Acrobat Documents on a Microsoft web server or workstation.

FDFToolkit.net is another library for creating FDF, XDP, XFDF, XML formats in Microsoft.net.

FDFToolkit.net can directly import ADO.net datarows and datasets, and output FDF, XDP, XFDF, and XML formats.

FDFToolkit.net can merge FDF, XDP, XML, and XFDF data formats with Adobe Acrobat and Static LiveCycle Forms.

FDFToolkit.net uses iTextSharp technologies, and comes with 1 year of free e-mail technical support and updates.

For more information:

http://www.fdftoolkit.net/

Feel free to contact sales support for a free 30-day demo:

http://www.nk-inc.com/support/sales/

[tahernd]

Hi NKOWA,

Can you let me know if i can achieve the same thing (as with FDF) with iTextSharp. We are currently using FDF which is not working on 64-bit server. iTextSharp as i remember, works on 64 bit. So i wanted to change my code to use iTextSharp instead of FDF. My requirement is, I have blank PDF files on the server which i need to populate with data from Database and show on the website... Please let me know..

Regards

Taher

TechDiary

[Former Community Member]

>>Can you let me know if i can achieve the same thing (as with FDF) with iTextSharp. We are currently using FDF which is not working on 64-bit server.

>>iTextSharp as i remember, works on 64 bit. So i wanted to change my code to use iTextSharp instead of FDF. My requirement is, I have blank PDF files on >>the server which i need to populate with data from Database and show on the website... Please let me know..

For the most part, iTextSharp works on 64bit and 32bit environments.

You can set field values, and also merge the FDF with the Acrobat forms, or the XDP with the LiveCycle forms. However, with iText products, if you are using the OpenSource free version, you will need to research how to do this, and subscribe to a public mailing list for support. Also, the newest iText products require your code to be made available to your clients, but with FDFToolkit.net and the older version of iText products does not.

You can not directly import a datarow from a dataset record using iTextSharp, as you can with FDFToolkit.net.

[tahernd]

I have a registered license version of iTextSharp. One thing I did not get is, in my FDFToolKit code a method "FDFSUBMITFormAction" is used to set the submit url of a form. With FDF we are also setting dynamic javascript. How do we do that with iTextSharp. Is it possible ?

Regards

Taher

TechDiary