I ran into an interesting problem at work today. I got a request to provide a link to a certain PDF file from my company's homepage. Now, this PDF is to contain some testimonials etc. and is to be followed by a feedback page which has HTML like controls - radio buttons, textboxes and a submit button - We are still talking about the PDF here :)
Further, the PDF must open in the browser and if a user hits 'submit', the form data must be sent to a server script.
I must admit, I am a little stumped. I mean, is it even possible to put HTML controls in a PDF and, is it possible to submit a form from a PDF?
Any other thoughts on this problem?
Yes you can create forms in PDF. Following might be useful to you.
Adobe Acrobat Professional gives you
the ability to turn your previously
designed, standard PDF file into an
interactive form that clients can
download, easily fill out, print or
effortlessly return to you by email.
All they need is the free Adobe
Acrobat Reade
http://www.thedesigncubicle.com/2008/12/how-to-create-interactive-pdf-forms-to-impress-your-clients/
All PDF forms can be distributed via
email but can also be distributed to
web sites using FormArtist itself.
Data can be submitted straight from
forms back to your web server. It can
then be retrieved automatically and
stored in a database on your PC for
export or analysis.
http://www.quask.com/survey/applications_pdfforms.asp
You can't put HTML controls in a PDF, but you can add form fields to a PDF which support buttons, radio buttons, check boxes, text fields, etc. Form fields support the use of JavaScript, so it's possible to create some fairly interactive PDF forms.
You can create a PDF form with a submit button that when clicked will submit form data to a server. This requires the use of a file format called FDF. These PDF forms can be created by any number of different PDF development libraries or off the shelf products including Adobe Acrobat, Nitro PDF Professional, PDF Converter Professional and more.
Here are some articles that will help orientate you on PDF forms and FDF:
How to populate a PDF file's form with data from a web server
Web Hosting PDFs
Linking Up with FDF
Developing with PDF Forms
Where Should I use Acrobat JavaScript?
There are quite a number of different products from a variety of different companies. The Planet PDF Forum is a very useful resource too.
PDF forms can be submitted to a server. When the form data is submitted to the server, you'll need the services of the Adobe FDF (Form Data File) toolkit to parse the FDF file received at the server side. In order to create PDF Forms that submit FDF data to the server, one would require Adobe Acrobat or other similar software (for instance Nitro PDF Professional and PDF Converter Professional 6, thanks to Rowan for the links).
You also have the option of submitting a XFDF file to the server, that can be processed by any XML parser. Unless I'm mistaken, this requires you to have a license of Adobe Lifecyle Designer (or equivalent software) to create an XFDF file.
Related
I'm looking for some recommendations on a solution to build dynamic PDFs using salesforce object data. We currently have a layout designed in photoshop, that we're looking to import into Salesforce and fill in various snippets/images based on data that lies within an object. The final product should come out as a PDF
I started building this using Adobe XFDF. I exported the PSD as a PDF and created a fillable form from it. This was then populated from an XFDF file generated from Salesforce. This does work but the design issues with fillable forms, requirement for acrobat pro on every system that uses it and the lack of support for referencing file templates that are not local have killed this. One of these issues alone wouldn't be deal breakers, but all 3 combined are too much to overcome.
While this is mostly all sorted out on the Salesforce side, I'm not sure of the best way to proceed with this when it comes to PDF generation, here are a couple of ideas that might work, but I don't have enough experience to be sure:
Generate HTML/CSS File from PSD file, upload to salesforce, modify html file within salesforce, send to PDF generation API - adobe api looks promising for this, but can I send over html and css files together to generate a single PDF?
Use Salesforce PDF tools to generate PDF, will need to modify visualforce page to the same design as reference design in PSD.
Use some sort of third party PDF generator tool that will allow me to reference my current design as a template.
I'm open to any suggestions, Thanks!
In salesforce, PDF can be generated without using any app. Check out the official document by Salesforce.
https://developer.salesforce.com/docs/atlas.en-us.pages.meta/pages/pages_output_pdf_renderas.htm
A quick start guide How to generate PDF in Salesforce
It does not require any purchase or separate license. If you are looking specifically an App, it can be found on app exchange.
https://appexchange.salesforce.com/appxSearchKeywordResults?keywords=pdf%20generator
I am trying to automatically convert some Microsoft OneNote files to PDF to send as a daily email attachment. I have thought of two systematic solutions but need some help in finding the right tools:
Find an application that may be programmatically called (via a Python script e.g.) that will convert a Microsoft OneNote file to a PDF.
Find a way for OneNote to automatically save files as PDFs every time it auto-saves.
Is anyone aware of tools available for either solution?
See my answer to your other question
The approach would be to get the pages content with
./me/onenote/pages/1-1c13bcbae2fdd747a95b3e5386caddf1!1-xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx/content?includeIDs=true&includeInkML=true&preAuthenticated=true
and then render the html on a canvas with javascript/jquery.
render ink with InkMLjs
and then use a library to convert the canvas to a pdf for example with canvas2pdf
Another approach might be something like Automator for osx. You could get the pages of interest with the microsoft-graph api, open them in a web browser using applescript and when the page has finished rendering -> print -> "Save as PDF"
I have created a few PDF (XFA) forms using the Adobe Livecycle ES4 Forms Designer.
I want to convert those forms into HTML and after reading a few posts, Livecycle server gives that option.
But I could not find a way to install the Livecycle server.
Has anyone rendered the livecycle PDF forms to HTML? If yes, how?
I want from my web application to give the opportunity to users to open and edit a template pdf form (and without download it and after upload it again with their changes) to save it directly to server. I use angularjs.
i really appreciate your time!
HTML uses form to send data to web server. The data can be included in the url parameters or embedded in HTML Request body. But for a file, I don't know how it works. I want to know this because I see some difference between uploading file on web and desktop applications.
The desktop application usually provides a text box to allow the user input the locale path of the file. But for web applications, the text box is usually read only.It displays the file path when the file gets selected with the browse button. Is that just a design issue between desktop and web?
Question is a bit unclear, but one important aspect about web applications (or HTML forms) is that they are sandboxed and cannot access local files directly. So the file upload picker does not allow direct input of the file name (which might be scripted), but only selection through an OS (or browser) supplied file choose UI (that the app or page cannot mess with).
Once the user has selected the file the page can access it, but it cannot make the selection itself (or surreptitiously).
A recent trend is to lock down desktop apps in the same manner. See for example Apple's sandboxing restrictions, that also do not allow apps to open random files without user intervention.
Is that just a design issue between desktop and web?
The implementation of a file upload form, whether desktop or web, is largely unimportant to the end result. Both desktop and web controls can utilize either a path string or a full-blown file navigator, though a desktop app is more likely to vary in its implementation. The only other difference is the destination: desktop apps tend to parse the file in memory and render it somehow, while web apps almost invariably upload it to a server (though this is subject to change: see the HTML5 file API), which then further operates on it.