Miscellaneous

Populate PDF form fields

Type:	code fragment
Added by:	amikeal
Entered:	04/06/2002
Last modified:	06/12/2001
Rating:	(3 votes)
Views:	10216

If you want to use PHP to populate fields in a PDF form (for instance, extracting data from a database and prefilling fields for the user) and you don't have the FDF module available to you for whatever reason, this function should work. Regardless, I think this function is more straightforward to use than the FDF module functions.

<?php
/* 

                                WARNING!! THIS FUNCTION SENDS HTTP HEADERS! It MUST be called 

                                before any content is spooled to the browser, or the function will fail! 

                                

                                void output_fdf (string $pdf_file, array $pdf_data)

                                

                                    $pdf_file:     a string containing a URL path to a PDF file on the server.


                                                This PDF MUST exist and contain fields with the names 


                                                referenced by $pdf_data for this function to work.


                                    $pdf_data:    an array of any fields in $pdf_file that you want to populate,


                                                of the form key=>val; where the field name is the key, and


                                                the field's value is in val.


                                

                            */    

                            
 function output_fdf ($pdf_file, $pdf_data) {

                                

                                $fdf = "%FDF-1.2n%����n";

                                $fdf .= "1 0 obj n<< /FDF ";

                                $fdf .= "<< /Fields [n"; 

                                

                                foreach ($pdf_data as $key => $val)

                                    $fdf .= "<< /V ($val)/T ($key) >> n";

                                    

                                $fdf .= "]n";

                                $fdf .= "/F ($pdf_file) >>";

                                $fdf .= ">>nendobjntrailern<<n/Root 1 0 Rnn>>n";

                                $fdf .= "%%EOF";

                                

                                /* Now we display the FDF data which causes Acrobat to start  */

                                

                                header ("Content-Type: application/vnd.fdf");

                                print $fdf;

                                

                            }

                            
 ?>

Usage Example

$file = 'http://url.com/form.pdf';

                            $data = array (

                               'field1' => 'value',

                               'field2' => 'value'

                            );

                            

                            output_fdf($file, $data);

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