Populate PDF's

[Papabjoe]

Does anyone know of a plugin that will allow me to populate pdf forms using only adobe acrobat reader? I would much rather use a plugin than re-design these forms from scratch.

[janedoe]

Hi,

You can create PDF's pretty easily in Pro 8. If you are wanting to have a certain format around your data (tables, etc), you can add this information to your layout.

Cheers,

jd.

[Papabjoe]

I know I can create pdfs. I could create them just fine using the cutepdf print driver. What I'm looking for is the ability to populate the fields of an existing pdf form with filemaker data. I found one solution that will let me do this but it requires that I own a full version of adobe acrobat. What I am looking for is something that will allow me to use acrobat reader instead.

[stuj1026]

Let me be clear here.. You have a PDF file that has fields in it correct? If this is so then each of those fields on your PDF has a name.

If this assumtion is correct, you need to create a FDF file which basically is a text file.

Lets say you have a pdf with a number of fields on it.. Unfortunateley at this point you will need a full version of Acrobat.. You export the field data and you will get something that looks like this....

%FDF-1.2

%âãÏÓ

1 0 obj

<<

/FDF << /Fields [

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_city)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_degree)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_email)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_fax_number)>>

<< /V (Papabjoe)/T (applicants_first_name)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_lat_name)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_mi)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_office_address)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_office_contact)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_phone_number)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_state)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (applicants_zip_code)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (final_specialty)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (group_name)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (patient_load)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (policy_number)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (quote_effective_date)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (quote_limits)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (quote_retro_date)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (weekly_load)>>

<< /V (xxxx)/T (ccach_account_info_t)>>

]

/F (http://www.picinsurance.com/renew_no_auto.pdf)/ID [

] >>

>>

endobj

trailer

<<

/Root 1 0 R

>>

%%EOF

This is a text file with the extension of FDF. Notice at the bottom of the fdf it references a file called http://www.picinsurance.com/renew_no_auto.pdf

That is where we keep the form on our web servers.. When we send the FDF to the client we substitute the XXXX's in the fdf with the field value. When the double click on the fdf it looks for the blank form and populates it with the values in the FDF..

Its a little more complicated than that but a little research on FDF's and acrobat will get you in the right direction..

copy the text from

%FDF-1.2 to

>>

%%EOF

and save it as text with the extension of .fdf

Then double click on the file after it has been saved to see what I mean

Stu

Edited January 24, 2006 by Guest

[Brudderman]

I don't know if this will help, but you might look in the Filemaker XSLT library:

FMP to PDF

FMP to PDF/PDF to FMP | Download

by Dean Westover

Demonstrates how to auto-fill FileMaker data to a Acrobat PDF file. Auto-filled data can also be submitted from the Sample.pdf file back to the PDF_Filler.fp5 file. Both the PDF_Filler.fp5 and Sample.pdf files are unprotected. The author has only tested the package contents on the Windows platform. Another tester has reported that the files "worked well" on a Mac running OS 9.1.