Fill pdf with data

Rails
1

i am attempting to fill a pdf that has fields with data submitted from
a user.

i am using pdftk but never tried to run something outside of ruby.
does anyone have any tips, or articles in regards to running an app
outside of ruby such as this to accomplish this task.

pdftk is command line operational.

2

On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 07:29 -0700, rushnosh wrote:

i am attempting to fill a pdf that has fields with data submitted from
a user.

i am using pdftk but never tried to run something outside of ruby.
does anyone have any tips, or articles in regards to running an app
outside of ruby such as this to accomplish this task.

pdftk is command line operational.

see the PDF page on http://wiki.rubyonrails.org

I have used a number of techniques suggested there including pdftk and
also am using the rjb (ruby-java-bridge) which uses itext to generate
PDF data fills of forms. Both work well.

Craig

3

the use of PDFtk requires GCJ and there seems to be some confusion in
regards to installation of this as GCC is installed on mac osx.
has anyone got pdftk to work.

i have been able to generate the FDF. there is also a note the acrobat
7 uses xml accomplish this.

any hints on how to solve this would be great.

4

http://www.accesspdf.com/article.php/20041130153545577

suggests that you can use one of the Macintosh pre-built binaries for OS
X 10.3 or 10.4.1 or higher and not have to deal with gcj (which is
necessary to build from source).

You shouldn’t need to build it from source if you don’t want to.

As for FDF - you really should get the book PDF Hacks (by the author of
pdftk by the way). He fully explains PDF/FDF and many things you can do
with it. I have exchanged some e-mails with Sid (the author of PDF Hacks
and pdftk), he’s really great, knowledgeable and the book is cheap.

Craig

5

OKAY
4 hours and 30 minutes later after trying to install pdftk i get an
error

cannont built pdftk because opt/local/bin/gcj-mp-4.2 missing???
possibly because of…
http://trac.macports.org/projects/macports/ticket/13553

has anyone installed pdftk on a mac (10.4)

thanks.

6

On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 14:07 -0700, rushnosh wrote:

as i mentioned i have FDF working and it creating the text file
without problems, it’s a matter of now getting pdftk to work with it.

are you saying that this won’t install/work?

Craig

7

suggests that you can use one of the Macintosh pre-built binaries for OS
X 10.3 or 10.4.1 or higher and not have to deal with gcj (which is
necessary to build from source).

criag, yes, i have been to accesspdf and read thru all the docs. i
don’t understand what you mean by using the pre-built binaries.
are you saying that i can run pdftk without installing gcj.

i am installing pdftk with macports and from the readings this is
going to take a long time. i hope this works.

as i mentioned i have FDF working and it creating the text file
without problems, it’s a matter of now getting pdftk to work with it.

8

are you saying that this won’t install/work?

PDFtk - The PDF Toolkit

isn’t this 10.3 specific. i am running 10.4
and i ran macports

are your saying that this will run on 10.4 as well?

9

got it working with macports.

10

On Fri, 2008-04-25 at 17:12 -0700, rushnosh wrote:

are you saying that this won’t install/work?

PDFtk - The PDF Toolkit

isn’t this 10.3 specific. i am running 10.4
and i ran macports

are your saying that this will run on 10.4 as well?

I’ve led you to the page that answers your question.

I didn’t write the page, I didn’t compile the software, I have never
tried to install it so I think my answer would be far more meaningless
than either reading the page I previously linked or downloading and
trying it yourself.

Craig