PDF Form filling with java and iText

I've been looking at PDF form filling with Java so I can use it with Railo and I came across iText, a Free Java-PDF Library.

I couldn't find a simple explanation of populating a PDF form in java so my below example assumes you have a PDF called "SimpleRegistrationForm.pdf" and it has 4 fields in it: name, address, postal_code, and email The completed form will be saved to a file called filledOutForm.pdf

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1/**
2 *
3 */
4
5import java.io.FileOutputStream;
6import java.io.IOException;
7
8import com.lowagie.text.DocumentException;
9import com.lowagie.text.pdf.AcroFields;
10import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfReader;
11import com.lowagie.text.pdf.PdfStamper;
12
13/**
14 * @author andyjarrett
15 *
16 */
17public class SimpleRegistrationForm {
18
19    /**
20     * @param args
21     * @throws IOException
22     * @throws DocumentException
23     */
24    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, DocumentException {
25
26            PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(
27                    "/dir/to/pdf/SimpleRegistrationForm.pdf");
28            PdfStamper filledOutForm = new PdfStamper(reader, new FileOutputStream(
29                    "/dir/to/pdf/filledOutForm.pdf"));
30
31            AcroFields form = filledOutForm.getAcroFields();
32            form.setField("name", "Andy Jarrett");
33            form.setField("address", "1 infinite road");
34            form.setField("postal_code", "1SW");
35            form.setField("email", "mail@example.com");
36
37            filledOutForm.close();
38    }
39
40}

Posted: 11-May-2009

Permalink: here

Andy Jarrett

PDF Form filling with java and iText

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