loading data into a pdf

[emerys]

I was using CF7 to query data and load it into pdf file using the XPAAJ java library from Ben Forte's blog. It was simple, and it worked very well. Then along came CF8 and LiveCycle ES. XPAAJ was free, but LiveCycle ES is not free. LC ES does much more than loading data into a pdf and costs quite a bit, but is probably worth the money. Because a small part of LC ES does the same thing that XPAAJ did, the CF8 upgrade knocks out XJAAP almost completely. (I got it back by stopping the CF8 application service, starting the CF7 application service, then restarting the CF8 - I don't want to run like this for very long).
I may eventually get into LiveCycle, but for now, does anyone know of something like XPAAJ that can load data directly into a pdf, or a Form Data Format (FDF) file?
Thanks Scott

[Guest · Accepted solution]

If by PDF 'data' you mean XMP metadata, then yes: CF8 ships with a version of the iText Java library that includes classes for reading and writing XMP in PDF. CF8's CFPDF tag uses iText under the hood but doesn't yet allow you to use all of its functionality via CFPDF, so you can just call the Java classes directly in order to access iText's XMP functionality.

Examples of reading and writing XMP are given here:
http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/webforums/forum/messageview.cfm?forumid=1&catid=7&threadid=1328338

Check Ray Camden's pdfUtils CFC on riaForge: it contains a new readXMP() method. writeXMP() is coming - the code is included in the thread above anyhow.

If you mean form data rather than XMP data, then iText can do that too. Check the iText docs:
http://www.1t3xt.info/api/

here's a quick form-filling example
http://www.peabrane.com/2007/3/5/pdf-templates-via-rails

and from cfSearching (who really knows iText in a CF context) there's this example, note the use of the fdfReader iText class:
http://cfsearching.blogspot.com/2008/01/submit-pdf-form-as-fdf-with-coldfusion.html

[emerys]

Thank you Ed. It looks like CFPDF is doing everything I need.
Scott