http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2009/06/19/pdftk-php-officially-released/

[andrewheiss]

pdftk-php Officially Released
http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2009/06/19/pdftk-php-officially-released/

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Hedgehog on 2009-06-29 04:11:02

Hi Andrew,

Thank you. I have almost everything working. I think have installed
everything as described. However, I have an interesting situation. The
example PDF opens up when I download the information inserted into sql.
The example PDF is blank. However, as soon as I close this PDF the newly
named PDF opens and says it is corrupted. The FDF file looks good. I can
open the FDF file with the example pdf manually and everything displays
great! However, for some reason the the FDF and the example are not
correctly linking.
Any ideas?
I went to the command prompt and the pdftk.exe works fine.

Here are two errors that I see in my apache log

[Sun Jun 28 20:43:52 2009] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] PHP Fatal
error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in C:\Program
Files\www\pdftk-php.php on line 77, referer: http://127.0.0.1/view.php

I also get this error but the database and data seems to be ok
[Sun Jun 28 20:50:05 2009] [error] [client 127.0.0.1] PHP Notice:
Undefined index: submitted in C:\Program Files\www\index.php on line
48, referer: http://127.0.0.1/index.php

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-06-29 21:17:17

I just responded to someone with a similar question
[here](http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2007/10/06/populating-a-livecycle-pdf-with-php-and-mysql/comment-page-1/#comment-215 "http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2007/10/06/populating-a-livecycle-pdf-with-php-and-mysql/comment-page-1/#comment-215")

In short, your script can't run pdftk for some reason, probably because
the path in passthru() is set wrong. Check the path, and try running
just "pdftk --help" in passthru() to see if you get any output until
it works. See the other comment for better instructions.

Good luck! Let me know if that doesn't fix it...

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Mak on 2009-08-17 18:28:51

Hi Andrew,

\

I am having a similar type of problem running pdftk from php script. It
works fine from command line but dosen't work from php script. below is
the passthru I am using. pdftk is installed in /usr/sbin/.

\

passthru("/usr/sbin/pdftk --help");

\

Thanks in advance
Mak

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Hedgehog on 2009-06-30 00:44:00

Hi Thank you,

Yes part of the problem on the windows system was the path name. You
can't have spaces... Doh!

I did a little more trouble shooting.

I wrote a test.php file with the following

this works as I get a return of
"pdftk 1.41 a Handy Tool for Manipulating PDF Documents Copyright (C)
2003-06, Sid Steward - Please Visit:
[www.pdftk.com](http://www.pdftk.com "www.pdftk.com")......."

So assume the passthru is working?

When I change the pdftk-php.php and made sure it had the proper file
location.

passthru("c:\www\pdftk.exe $pdf_original fill_form $fdf_fn output -
flatten");

I get this error in my apache log...

Unhandled Java Exception:
java.io.CharConversionException
at 0x0056175e (Unknown Source)
at 0x00561c52 (Unknown Source)
at 0x00561d03 (Unknown Source)
at 0x0057692d (Unknown Source)
at 0x0055f64d (Unknown Source)
at 0x006bc0ad (Unknown Source)
at 0x006994e0 (Unknown Source)
at 0x00567a96 (Unknown Source)
at 0x0056e8f2 (Unknown Source)
at 0x0056e92c (Unknown Source)
at 0x00445fa6 (Unknown Source)
at 0x0048b15e (Unknown Source)
at 0x0048b5b8 (Unknown Source)
at 0x0048c238 (Unknown Source)
at 0x0046c81f (Unknown Source)
at 0x00469301 (Unknown Source)
at 0x004666a6 (Unknown Source)

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Hedgehog on 2009-06-30 03:42:20

I think the pdftk.exe can't parse the new livecycle form.. I can do the
command prompt and have it parse your example.pdf and have it out =put
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: firstname
FieldFlags: 0
FieldJustification: Left
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: lastname
FieldFlags: 0
FieldJustification: Left
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: email
FieldFlags: 0
FieldJustification: Left

However, for my forms (created in adobe livecyle ES 8.2) if they are
created as "dynamic" pdftk won't work. If i create them as static
pdftk will open them up and give you something like this.

The issue is that all of our forms are dynamic meaning pdftk won't
work?...

example static:
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: form1[0].#subform[0].Name[0]
FieldNameAlt: Name
FieldFlags: 0
FieldJustification: Left
---
FieldType: Text
FieldName: form1[0].#subform[0].City[0]
FieldNameAlt: City
FieldFlags: 0
FieldJustification: Left

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-06-30 08:46:48

Yeah, the Java errors you are getting are because pdftk is choking on
your PDF (passthru() is working just fine now)

This could be because of fonts you have embedded in the PDF or because
it's a newer version of the PDF standard. Try backsaving your form as a
version 1.5 or 1.6 PDF (in the advanced options of the save dialog,
hopefully) and try again.

Because you're getting character exceptions, I'd guess there's a
problem with an embedded font. Try changing all the fonts to something
uber universal like Times New Roman or Arial and take out any foreign
characters you might have and see if that helps.

Also, check the new
[Troubleshooting](http://wiki.github.com/andrewheiss/pdftk-php/troubleshooting "http://wiki.github.com/andrewheiss/pdftk-php/troubleshooting")
page for more details.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Hedgehog on 2009-06-30 15:22:45

Thank you. I would put that troubleshooting as part of your install
instructions or at least a link to it. Also as part of the install I
would make it clear to download pdftk.

I finally got my linux box passthru working properly. I used the same
pdf and got no java errors on the linux version of pdftk. For some
reason the linux version of pdftk can handle different fonts than the
windows version?....

Here are my two pdf's one is static and one is dynamic. The pdftk
doesn't work on any dynamic pdf's but works great on static pdfs

http://www.pathway2curis.co...
http://www.pathway2curis.co...

Is this a limitation of pdftk?

Blurb from a website
http://www.appligent.com/ad...

Static forms present a fixed set of text, graphics, and fields at all
times, regardless of the amount of data merged with the form. If more
data is available than the static form was designed to hold, the excess
data is not displayed in the rendered form. Conversely, if less data is
available than the static form was designed to hold, the excess space is
left blank in the rendered form.
Designer enables you to create dynamic interactive forms that users open
and fill online with Acrobat or Adobe Reader. Dynamic interactive forms
combine both dynamic and interactive form functionality such that users
can enter data directly into expandable fields, add or remove sections,
and return the form data electronically.
Unlike a static interactive form, which has a fixed layout (format and
length), the layout of a dynamic interactive form adjusts according to
the amount of data the user enters into the various fields and the
number of items they add or remove. For example, in the sample dynamic
interactive Purchase Order form, users can add or remove item rows, and
choose to add their comments to the form. In either case, the layout of
the form adjusts to accommodate the changes.
Creating dynamic interactive forms involves implementing the same
features and methods you use to create static interactive forms.
However, to add dynamic functionality to interactive forms,you also work
with master pages, content areas, and subforms to control how Designer
lays down objects in the form as the form adjusts to display varying
amounts of data.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-06-30 15:30:13

I just finished updating the [project's documentation
wiki](http://wiki.github.com/andrewheiss/pdftk-php "http://wiki.github.com/andrewheiss/pdftk-php")
at Github, with troubleshooting instructions gleaned from several years
of e-mails and comments from other people, so that should cover most
main issues.

And, yeah, I think the issue with static vs. dynamic pdfs is a
limitation of pdftk. It hasn't been updated in a few years, so dynamic
forms were probably invented after the latest version.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Hedgehog on 2009-06-30 16:07:13

Thank you. I emailed "Sid" and asked him about the dynamic forms &
PDFTK

Also I had the call the forge_php file in order to make my static
livecycle forms work. With your example.pdf I didn't have make any
changes to the code (only the ones listed in your install instructions).

If I didn't call the forge_php file I got an undefined function. I
believe it was called (escape_pdf_string) on line 248 of pdftk-php (I
can re-create the exact issue if you would like?... Will have to wait
until I get home).

As soon as I called the OLD forge_php file it worked fine.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-06-30 17:50:10

I've heard from a couple other people that there's a problem with
escape_pdf_string. Could you recreate the issue and e-mail it to me at
andrewheiss at gmail?

Thanks!

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Hedgehog on 2009-07-02 23:21:17

I hope you got my email,

With livecycle you can also create a database connection and call
information back based on a query.

The other option that my brother will be playing around with is passing
the FDF or XFDF file is via the web URL

For example a url like this
http://localhost/fine_form.pdf#FDF=http://localhost/fdf_data.php?t=42

See
[http://books.google.com/boo...](http://books.google.com/books?id=HRFtXWtbAdwC&dq=pdf+hacks&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=eT9NSsrVLIrDlAf7z8CuBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4 "http://books.google.com/books?id=HRFtXWtbAdwC&dq=pdf+hacks&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=eT9NSsrVLIrDlAf7z8CuBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4")

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Darrell on 2009-07-20 22:18:27

escape_pdf_string Problems

Original problems were posted here:
[http://www.andrewheiss.com/...](http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2007/10/06/populating-a-livecycle-pdf-with-php-and-mysql/comment-page-1/#comment-295 "http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2007/10/06/populating-a-livecycle-pdf-with-php-and-mysql/comment-page-1/#comment-295")
but it should go here.

I finally re-downloaded the latest and greatest tarabll from GitHub
dated 07-03-2009 in which the description says it fixed the
escape_pdf_string by making it public... I don't think that it fixed
the problem and I think it may be part of my problem as stated in the
previous posts.

I have full access to my servers over here... I cleared the error_log
on my webserver to see what is going on.

To re-iterate the problem, using A.W's Acrobat form in the tarball, I
am able to sumbit data thru the web interface and submitable form
without issue. I can also repopluate the form without issue with the
code as is.

I made a clean LiveCycle Design Form using the three fields as listed in
A.W.'s Acrobat Form ( firstname, lastname and email) and inserted the
Live Cycel Form Field Names that correspond to these fields into the
download.php file... However at this point, trying to repopluate the
LiveCycle Form produces an "http 500 - Internal Error".

Upon viewing the error_log file, this is what is logged:

PHP Fatal error: Call to undefined function escape_pdf_string() in /var/www/html/new-pdf/pdftk-php.php on line 247

So it appears that by making the escape_pdf_string a public function
does not fix the error in LC forms...

Hedgehog, I see in your post above you made reference to this, but I
don't see a solution (I assume the description on the tarball that A.W.
published is the direct product of your post). Any help would be
appreciated...

Darrell

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-07-21 06:31:43

Hmm... What version of PHP are you using?

I'll check the escape_pdf_string issue again, too.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Darrell on 2009-07-21 15:03:46

Hello Andrew,

Here is my work environment:

I am running Fedora11 with pdftk-1.41-19.fc11.i586,
httpd-2.2.11-8.i586 (apache),
php-5.2.9-2.fc11.i586 and
mysql-5.1.35-1.fc11.i586...

All forms are created in LiveCycle 8.0 and are all saved as Acrobat 7
(static) pdf forms...

I just built this server with a fresh install of Fedora 11.

Thanks

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-07-21 16:38:15

Excellent - I'll take a look.

I was hoping the public/protected issue was a PHP version problem, but
you're on the same version as me, so it's back to the drawing board.

Thanks!

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-07-21 18:07:28

I'm pretty sure I just fixed it. Line 247 was calling a procedural
function rather than the escape_pdf_string function in the class.
Adding a $this-> to the line fixed it.

It'll probably work with escape_pdf_string as protected or private
again, since that was the problem all along.

I pushed the patch to GitHub, so you can download the latest tarball
(not the tag, though) to get the fixed version.

Let me know if there are any other problems.

Thanks!

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-07-21 18:12:44

Actually, I decided to tag it after all. You can download version 1.0.2
from GitHub (or just the automatically packaged tarball/zip - they're
one and the same at this point)

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Darrell on 2009-07-21 21:28:30

Hello Andrew, thank you for working on that problem so quickly... The
fix does allow me to now begin to download a pdf with no crash. Problem
now is, the downloaded pdf shows a flattened form of the original pdf
but has blank fields (not repopluating).

I have commented out the unlink on Line 71 and the script seems to
produce a properly formed fdf file.. See here:

%FDF-1.2
%����
1 0 obj
<<
/FDF << /Fields [ << /T (form1[0]) /Kids [ << /T (#subform[0]) /Kids [ <>
<>
<>
] >>
] >>
<>
<>
]
>>
>>
endobj
trailer
<>
%%EOF

And I have run the pdftk at the command line to try to directly merge
the newly created fdf file with the original pdf file which results in a
test.pdf that is the original pdf flattened file without the form fields
repopulated (exactly what I experience thru the web download.php)...
The passthru path has the correct location of pdftk...

If you look at my previous post, it may be because the fdf_data_string
is not properly formed in the download.php (pdftk dump_data_fields
produces a & # 0 ; after each path in the DOM formatted field
name-which I thought was odd..) I have tried the fdf_data_string with
these characters (they are really altogether with no spaces) and without
them... I have also used the fieldnames as reported in the header of
the Script Editor Window in LC (which doesnt have some of the [0] at
the ends of the DOM paths).

By chance can you send me or upload a working copy of a LC form and the
download.php form with the fdf_data_strings line set in which you can
successfully repopluate the data fields in a Live Cycle Form... Then I
could compare each of the three variations of the fdf_data_strings I am
using to determine which is correct and/or if none of them are
correct...

Again Andrew, thank you for all of your work on this project... If I
get this working, it will be a fantastic addition to my company's work
flow...

Darrell

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-07-23 14:22:51

I made a super simple LC form that you can download
[here.](http://files.andrewheiss.com/acrobat7-static.pdf "http://files.andrewheiss.com/acrobat7-static.pdf")

\

I only modified two lines in download.php--you can get the diff
here.

\

The LC form works fine on my two servers, so hopefully it'll help clear
up any problems you're having.

\

Let me know if you need anything else.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Darrell on 2009-07-23 17:40:43

Thanks for posting the LC form Andrew... Unfortunately, using your form
with the $fdf_data_string in the download.php file (as indicated above)
still gives me the flattened form without the data repopulated...

\

I guess it must be something on my end... Wonder if it is a setting in
my php.ini script... Do you know of any specific setting in the php.ini
file that may "break" your code if implemented?

\

Again thank you Andrew... If I find a solution I will be sure to post.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Darrell on 2009-07-27 21:15:27

Live Cycle Forms Will Not Repopluate

\

Just a follow up... I decided to download the source file for pdftk
directly from the
[www.accesspdf.com](http://www.accesspdf.com "www.accesspdf.com")
website... However, the gcc version on Fedora 11 is 4.4.0-4 which is
greater than the 3.4.2 version which the latest and greatest pdftk-1.41
version was built with (the newer gcc package removed some of the libgcj
functions according to the
[www.accesspdf.com](http://www.accesspdf.com "www.accesspdf.com")
website needed for a successful build)... Anyway, that said, the only
option is to use pdftk that you can install with yum from the default
Fedora repositories.

\

Using this version of pdftk however results in the Live Cycle Forms not
being repoplutated.

\

I had an old Fedora 6 machine laying around and tested the LC form that
Andrew sent to me using an rpm of pdftk that I found compiled for
fc6... To my amazement, it repopulated the flattened LC form without
issue. (It does not, however, repopulate an unflattened form - but I can
live with it)..

\

I am assuming that the problem is with the version of pdftk that comes
on Fedora 10 and 11 as when you run the command

\

pdftk example.pdf dump_data_fields

\

the form field names have the code sequence for a null character
appended to each path segment in the DOM name.. ie

\

form1[0] & # 0 ;.#subform[0] & # 0 ; .email[0] & # 0 ;

\

(Note I had to put spaces between the code sequence so it would show up
in this comment blog)

\

So I am assuming the pdftk command in the Fedora 11 version doesn't
know how to handle the merging of these fields with the odd ball null
code sequence ... If I use the exact same LC form on Fedora 6 and run
dump_data_fields the null code sequence does not appear in the form
field names...

\

Anyone have a clue as to why pdftk on Fedora 11 would be doing this? and
is there a way to fix it prior to the merge.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by skeeter101 on 2009-07-22 12:53:00

Andrew,
I am trying your example on a linux based sys. 'Ubuntu 9.04 to be
exact. And during the installation you say to type 'whereis pdftk' to
verify the path of it. When I type that in, it is specifying a path.
What am I not doing?

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by skeeter101 on 2009-07-22 12:53:51

Sorry......IT IS NOT

telling me the path........I type 'whereis pdftk' and hit
enter.....all it shows is:

pdftk:

and that is all......

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Darrell on 2009-07-22 19:37:06

Skeeter, try using this command:

which pdftk

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by skeeter101 on 2009-07-23 12:03:21

Thank you Darrell,

got it

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by skeeter101 on 2009-07-23 14:34:25

Andrew,

\

Do you have a step by step tutorial available on this? I have created my
own pdf document and got all the specified field names in place, and
have created my form. But I am in need of a little bit more support on
what to place where, and all that. Could you please respond and let me
know? Or provide a link to a page with step by step instructions?

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-07-23 16:02:16

Can you be a little more specific as to what you need help with? The
[original
tutorial](http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2007/10/06/populating-a-livecycle-pdf-with-php-and-mysql/ "http://www.andrewheiss.com/blog/2007/10/06/populating-a-livecycle-pdf-with-php-and-mysql/")
has the general instructions on how to get most of this working--the
newer version of the project has instructions in the comments of both
pdftk-php.php, example/download.php, and README.txt

\

In general, just use example/download.php as your template download
script. The script gets data from a database, saves the data to
different variables, maps those variables to PDF form fields (in line
39), and then injects that data into a blank PDF form, where you specify
at line 65.

\

So, make sure the example is working first--then modify and extend it
to work with your specific application.

\

Let me know any specific questions you have getting this set up.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by skeeter101 on 2009-07-23 17:24:42

Another thing.

\

pdftk-php.php should be located in the dir above the index,view and
download files correct? And, on the line that you specify that location
of the pdf document, I uploaded mine to the server, and it could not
find it. I just renamed it to 'example.php' and BOOM, it came
up......I have got to be missing something small here on this issue.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by skeeter101 on 2009-07-23 17:21:59

Andrew,

I am creating my pdf in LiveCycle. One thing I have noticed is that I
needed to do a 'dump' for the field names. This is what I got:

FieldType: Text
FieldName: firstname
FieldFlags: 0

FieldJustification: Left

FieldType: Text
FieldName: lastname
FieldFlags: 0

FieldJustification: Left

FieldType: Text
FieldName: email
FieldFlags: 0
FieldJustification: Left

\

On one of your tutorials, it had more info such as:
FieldName: form1[0].#subform[0].#area[0].FirstName[0]

\

and mine did not have that. Am I doing something wrong in LiveCycle? I
had the pdf already created and imported it into LiveCycle, but then it
told me something about the 'artwork' that could not be imported if
the pdf was not made in LiveCycle, so I am tying it from scratch.

\

What do you suggest?

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2009-07-23 20:51:04

It should be okay if your LiveCycle form doesn't follow my
example--you must have changed some of the frame or page settings. Use
whatever form names pdftk tells you to.

\

As for the location of pdftk-php.php, it can go wherever you want it
to--you just need to make sure the relative path is set correctly in
download.php at line 18.

\

The same goes for the pdf file. Make sure it is located at the relative
path you tell it to be.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Joshua on 2009-11-01 16:34:35

Problem solved. I am including it here for anyone running into this
issue.

\

The problem was that I was calling the "download.php" with an include
statement. It appears passthru() was trying to interpret the file as
HTML instead of PDF. Changing MY code to header("Location:
download.php") fixed the issue.

\

Cheers!

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Todor on 2010-01-28 11:22:36

I have the same problem but I don not change anything except the path to
pdftk with the following row from pdftk-php.php:
passthru("example/pdftk $pdf_original fill_form $fdf_fn output -
flatten");
I use xampp client and in the htdocs root folder I have a example folder
in which is the pdftk.exe file.
Thanks in advance :)

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Andrew on 2010-01-28 13:58:33

What platform are you using with xampp? If you're on Windows, change
example/pdftk to example/pdftk.exe. If you're on Linux or OS X
you'll need to install pdftk system wide and put the absolute path to
the installed binary.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Todor on 2010-01-28 14:51:07

I use Windows and if I change it to example/pdftk.exe it doesn't work
again :( Is there any way to send you the files via e-mail and you to
take a look , I cannot fix it at all.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by ell on 2010-02-12 16:18:38

html to pdf
what is the command line parameters convert html to pdf so it will have
same view
as original html ?
and is it possible also to convert .pdf file to .html or .xml file(that
wiil giver the 'real' cooridantes for each node)\

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Chris on 2010-03-22 22:43:10

Hopefully you still monitor these comments. I'm having a problem with
certain characters crashing when the user tries to open a form-filled
pdf. So far, when the user tries to input any of the following
characters: % ( ) / the pdf will crash. I see in the function,
escape_pdf_string(), that you are attempting to handle some of these,
but the backslash delimiter doesn't seem to be effective. Additionally,
the % and / aren't handled at all.

Do you have any idea why I might be experiencing this problem? I can't
find anyone else complaining about it, so maybe it's something specific
about what I'm doing.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2010-03-23 10:21:55

Yeah, I'm still monitoring these comments. This still drives crazy
amounts of traffic to my site, even though the original script is almost
3 years old.

In all honesty, I never touched the escape_pdf_string
function---that's straight from Sid's fdf generator. I wouldn't doubt
that that's the problem.

I'd recommend using Acrobat to fill the form with some of the offending
characters and export the filled form data as an FDF (Forms > Manage
Form Data > Export Data...). Open the FDF in a text editor and see how
Acrobat handles the weird characters. Then see if you can you can mess
with the escaping functions to make it output correctly.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Chris on 2010-03-25 17:29:03

Thanks for the quick reply. I finally got around to testing this as you
suggested. Adobe is escaping those characters exactly as Sid's fdf
does. Only the backslash and both parentheses receive a backslash for
escaping.

I dumped the pdftk-php output to compare to adobe's FDF export. The way
the data is constructed is definitely different. FDF generator is way
more verbose. But regardless the only time it has failed to work are on
these special characters.

So at this point, I'm not sure what to do. The quick fix is to replace
the the problem characters with an empty string. However, it may require
a lot of research(hacking) to get these characters to work for me. It's
crazy no one else has reported this problem.

Last thing, pdftk-php has been great. We need to create and store a lot
of PDFs. I had to modify to save, merge, and encrypt pdfs, and also to
either output the pdf immediately or to save it to a filesystem for
access later.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2010-03-25 22:04:34

Weird. I have no idea what it's doing with the escaping thing. Report
the problem at the GitHub issues page so we can get other people on
this...

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Brad on 2010-08-03 22:49:00

I was figuring out why all my pdf's were saving with size 1 byte and
finally found out after some hours of debugging that safe_mode was on!
Shoulda looked at the requirements before implementing this! Thank you
for the excellent toolkit!

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by c1nco on 2010-12-29 20:03:48

How could I add an email function - to email the flattened pdf?

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2010-12-29 20:45:34

You'll have to output the PDF to a temporary folder (rather than serve
it directly to the browser), and use PHP's mail() to attach it to an
e-mail.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Dniemeye on 2011-01-17 07:54:22

I'm asking the same question asked almost a year ago, does pdftk
provide a way to work with dynamic pdf's? I have fields that will be
populated by a database and some fields will be one sentence because the
client didn't have much to answer, and some verbose clients answer with
1 -2 pages. I read that livecycle designer can make dynamic pdf's but
can an updated pdftk handle that?
Dave

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2011-01-27 05:53:46

As far as I know, it can't yet (but I haven't tried)

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Zim on 2011-03-10 02:31:24

Unfillable form?

This app has been working wonderfully (thank you so much Andrew), and
now the govt has updated the form and I cannot get it to work with the
new pdf. I've decrypted it (it comes with a blank owner pass), and
loaded it into LiveCycle ES2 and saved it as a static pdf, but it seems
that no matter how I address the field names, I can't get them to fill
in via this app anymore. I've tried a number of combinations based on
the pdftk field dump, but have run dry. I was hoping you might have a
suggestion. This is where the my pdf is:
http://sis.zimsoft.ca/imm.pdf

This is the original:
http://www.cic.gc.ca/englis...

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2011-03-14 22:09:54

What happens if you save/build the form with Acrobat instead of
LiveCycle? I'm not sure how well pdftk works with password-protected
(or formerly password-protected documents).

Actually, upon looking closer at the form, there's some weird
Acrobat-specific stuff going on. I can't open it in OS X's
Preview---it has to be done in Acrobat. My guess is that something in
the metadata is having an effect on it.

Can you use pdftk from the command line to do any thing to the file,
like reordering pages, or anything else listed in `pdftk --help`?

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Zim on 2011-03-14 23:55:15

It has some wierd acrobat-only web download bit going on I suspect. I
had to save it as 'static' in live cycle to view it properly in any
other pdf viewer. I had hoped this converted it to FDF/XFDF compatible,
and was about to create an XFDF (xml generating) version of your app.

I suspect now, strongly, that the form is an XFA form that isn't
compatible with pdftk injecting the data, but pdftk will dump the fields
and field information (which led me to believe it may be able to inject
like before). I've tried a number of things, like saving the pdf from
acrobat pro, which directs you to live cycle because the form was
created there. I've tried saving it in "pdf 7.0 compatible" format
inside livecycle, but it complains in the console about not being able
to convert and then merrily does "something", outputting a pdf (that
still doesn't work). I suspect that once it is in XFA, there is no way
to bring it back to an AcroForm that will be useful for using pdftk-php.
:( A previous acroForm pdf was password protected, and removing the
blank password made it work perfectly with your app & pdftk.

At this point, I'm looking at printing to pdf (gonging the xfa form),
and recreating an FDF compatible acroform in acrobat pro which is 100%
compatible with pdftk & your wonderful php app. A week of frustrating
dead ends led to plan B (I had hoped to keep the forms/pdf intact).

I really appreciate you taking a look, and this app you wrote was a
god-send.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2011-03-15 00:11:58

Yeah, that was actually my next suggestion---print it as a PDF and start
the form from scratch. More work, but it should fix it.

I'm glad you found a good use for the app!

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Luka Pribanić on 2011-05-24 13:21:51

Hey Andrew!
I've just noticed in my test that PDF isn't filled with same character
set that you're using on your web page. For example, if I enter
"ČĆŽŠĐčćžđš" they will be shown on your list of test names, but if you
download PDF they'll be converted to some weird characters like /%\..

I'm sure it's just a matter of encoding to right charset, but I
thought I'd mention it anyway :) I'm looking forward to trying it
myself tomorrow when I get back to work :)

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2011-05-24 15:40:58

Unfortunately it seems to be an issue with pdftk, which doesn't seem
like it can handle Unicode
(https://github.com/andrewhe... "andrewheiss/pdftk-php#1)")

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Luka Pribanić on 2011-05-25 09:20:28

Thanks Andrew, that's unfortunate.. Seems I'll have to give up on PDF
generation altogether, as this was kinda my last resort.. I never
imagined that I'd have more luck generating Word docs than PDF files :)

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by jdgower on 2011-06-23 17:05:17

Hey...awesome program!  I have been using it for a couple of years, but
now have a new need...I need to save the pdf to the server as a
temporary file instead of having it download on the user's
computer...I have the feeling the answer lies in here:

header("Content-Type:
application/force-download");header("Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename=\"$pdf_filename\"");passthru("pdftk $pdf_original
fill_form $fdf_fn output - ");

Not sure how to change it to make the pdf download to the server.  Any
help is much appreciated.  Thanks for a great program :)

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted on 2011-06-29 17:33:51

If you want the file to be saved to the server, remove the header()
lines (since that forces a download) and change the "-" in passthru()
to a path on the server. When a "-" is used, pdftk outputs the PDF to
standard input (or the user's browser) instead of a file; specifying a
location will save a new PDF file there instead of serving it to the
user.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Angie on 2012-06-06 00:16:36

Hi Andrew..
I've tested the your example
page, [http://pdftk-php.andrewheis...](http://pdftk-php.andrewheiss.com/example/view.php "http://pdftk-php.andrewheiss.com/example/view.php"),
but when I try to open the pdf, but it came back as an error (see
attached screenshot)

I've tried to open other people's pdf, same error message, any idea?

Cheers
Angie\

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Dan on 2012-09-05 20:30:15

 I'm having the same issue.

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Aisha on 2012-08-30 11:35:33

Hi Andrew

I have one PDF file with some Drop down and Text Fields which is
populated from database and it is working fine now after some initial
fight. Now my question is I want to modify my PDF file manually if there
is any changes. But there is no Drop down on my NEWly created PDF file.
is there some solution for this.

Thanks in advance!!

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Aisha on 2012-09-10 09:28:15

Hi Andrew

Unfortunately there are some issues if number of fields on PDF file are
200+ Not sure whats wrong but it is throwing error if number of array
keys exceed behond a limit. any ideas?

Thansk

[andrewheiss]

Originally posted by Lakhan Agarwal on 2017-01-11 06:19:55

Hi Andrew,

I want to extract xml or xfa from form pdf in php. Please suggest me.