I need help - I can help - Fill Form Field by Name

Print Page | Close Window

Fill Form Field by Name - strange name

Printed From: Debenu Quick PDF Library - PDF SDK Community Forum
Category: For Users of the Library
Forum Name: I need help - I can help
Forum Description: Problems and solutions while programming with the Debenu Quick PDF Library and Debenu PDF Viewer SDK
URL: http://www.quickpdf.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2115
Printed Date: 07 May 25 at 5:47PM
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Fill Form Field by Name - strange name

Posted By: Rick_Dev
Subject: Fill Form Field by Name - strange name
Date Posted: 25 Jan 12 at 6:36PM

Hello,

I'm trying to fill in an IRS tax form field. When I run through all fields in the document and get the names I see this is the field name I want to populate as returned by QuickPDFGetFormFieldTitle.
topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Pg1Header[0].EINAndName[0].f1_02_0_[0]

I've tried calling QuickPDFSetFormFieldValueByTitle passing the entire string above and just 'f1_02_0_[0]'. Neither worked.
Can I set the "context" in some way? I've tried doing Select Page but it didn't appear to make any difference.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Rick

Replies:

Posted By: AndrewC
Date Posted: 26 Jan 12 at 8:16AM

FormFields with these types of names are XFA based form fields. There are various ways to fill there but there are no guarantees as Adobe don't make this process easy.

1. After LoadFromFile() call the following two functions and then fill the form with the standard formfield functions.

QP.RemoveXFAEntries(0);

QP.RemoveUsageRights();

2. Fill the form using the XFA based form field functions.

private void XFAFillAll_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

QP.SetNeedAppearances(1);

int c = QP.GetXFAFormFieldCount();

for (int i = 1; i <= c; i++)

{

string name = QP.GetXFAFormFieldName(i);

string value = QP.GetXFAFormFieldValue(name);

if (name.Contains("Button") || name.Contains("CheckBox"))

QP.SetXFAFormFieldValue(name, "1");

else if (name.Contains("Date"))

QP.SetXFAFormFieldValue(name, "18/03/2012");

else if (name.Contains("State"))

QP.SetXFAFormFieldValue(name, "AK");

else if (name.Contains("Zip"))

QP.SetXFAFormFieldValue(name, "12345");

else if (name.Contains("Amt"))

QP.SetXFAFormFieldValue(name, "20000000");

else

{

// Remove everything up until the last '/' character

int last = name.LastIndexOf('/');

string s = name.Substring(last + 1);

QP.SetXFAFormFieldValue(name, "AAA");

}

QP.SaveToFile("out.pdf");

}

Andrew.

Posted By: Rick_Dev
Date Posted: 26 Jan 12 at 4:03PM

Thanks, Andrew.

That is interesting. I'm currently filling out the fields using QuickPDFSetFormFieldValue and it is working for the 5-6 fields I've tested (there are 600 in the document).
I have not called RemoveXFAEntries.
I'll do some more experimenting/testing.

Thanks,
Rick

Posted By: Rick_Dev
Date Posted: 30 Jan 12 at 6:53PM

Well, I have an update.

Setting the XFA field with SetFormFieldValue appeared to work but it didn't really.
When I look at the PDF file using PDF-Viewer from www.tracker-software.com everything appear fine. However, when I open it with Acrobat Reader I get an error "Expected a name object."
Bummer.

I then tried Andrew's suggestion to RemoveXFAEntries and RemoveUsageRights but then I don't get any values in my fields in the output PDF. I tried calling these methods both before and after I filled in the form values.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Rick

Posted By: Rick_Dev
Date Posted: 30 Jan 12 at 10:51PM

Update - problem resolved.

I had a bug in my code that caused it to fail after I upgraded to version 8.xx and tried Andrew's solution.
Once I fixed the bug calling RemoveXFAEntries and RemoveUsageRights worked.
The resulting PDF looks fine in both viewers I've tested.

Thansk,
Rick