Q: I would like to use PDFNet to implement the following requrements:
a) read a "template" forms PDF from a relational database (probably as
a blob) into a memory representation of the PDF (withOUT going through
a file);
b) possibly pre-fill some of the forms fields in the PDF;
c) stream this PDF representation into *either* a WinForms GUI *or* a
web page (presumably using some kind of control);
d) allow the user to fill-in and/or change the various form fields;
e) retrieve the PDF from the UI into another memory representation of
the PDF - IOW, withOUT going through a file;
f) retrieve the values of the form fields (either by iteration or by
name/index/id), for storage into the database;
g) store the complete PDF into a new database blob (or other
presumably binary db representation).
Can I use PDFNet SDK (http://www.pdftron.com/net) for this task?
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A:
a) read a "template" forms PDF from a relational database
(probably as a blob) into a memory representation of the PDF (withOUT going through a file);
As a starting point for this part you may want to take a look at
PDFDocMemeory sample project (http://www.pdftron.com/net/
samplecode.html#PDFDocMemory).
b) possibly pre-fill some of the forms fields in the PDF;
For this you could use PDFNet forms API as shown in InteractiveForms
sample project (http://www.pdftron.com/net/
samplecode.html#InteractiveForms).
c) stream this PDF representation into *either* a WinForms GUI
*or* a web page (presumably using some kind of control);
You could use PDFView control (http://www.pdftron.com/net/
samplecode.html#PDFViewSimple) or you could use PDFDraw class (http://
www.pdftron.com/net/samplecode.html#PDFDraw) to convert pre-filled
forms to images that can be serve them over the web.
d) allow the user to fill-in and/or change the various form fields;
In the server case you could use PDFNet forms API (InteractiveForms
sample) to update form fields. In case of WinForms application you can
extend PDFView class to implement interactive form filling. We are
about to release the next major version of PDFNet SDK (v5) that will
include a number of built-in tools in PDFView control (including
interactive form filling, annotation editing, markup, etc). This way
you would not need to write much code to take advantage of these
features.
e) retrieve the PDF from the UI into another memory representation
of the PDF - IOW, withOUT going through a file;
To serialize PDF in memory use steps shown in PDFDocMemeory sample
project (http://www.pdftron.com/net/samplecode.html#PDFDocMemory).
f) retrieve the values of the form fields
For this step you would also use PDFNet forms API (http://
www.pdftron.com/net/samplecode.html#InteractiveForms).