Leonard Rosenthol wrote:
> On Apr 29, 2007, at 8:41 PM, William Alexander Segraves wrote:

>> So, if a Java-iText class is provided that does the merging on the
>> client-side of the transaction, separately from the interaction  
>> between the
>> client browser and the "localhost" server, this would be O.K. Right?

>       If the localhost server communicates in any way with the iText class  
> that is doing the saving - then you are in violation.

I must admit that I haven't followed the complete discussion,
but I interpreted the question as: is there a way to run iText
on the client-side (in the browser / with or without connection
to the localhost) instead of on the server-side (risking a
license violation).

I guess William is thinking of some way to send the data
filled in in Adobe Reader to a Java Applet, and have the
applet create a new PDF with all the fields filled in.
I don't see how this would be different from what is
forbidden by the EULA, but for argument's sake, have
a look at the following small prototypes I recently made.

In the first prototype, you can fill in a form using
browser -> reader communication.
http://itext.ugent.be/playground/agreement.html
Click on the 'browse courses' button and an HTML window
will open. Choose a course, click OK, and the PDF form
will be filled in. Why is this useful? We have a catalogue with
over 5000 courses, and we can easily let potential students browse
this catalog using HTML pages generated using JSP, PHP,...),
but we want them to fill out the form in PDF.

The second prototype tests the reverse communication:
http://itext.ugent.be/playground/talk_to_html.html
I didn't really need this for my project, so I didn't elaborate
on the example. If you move your mouse over the blank PDF page,
you'll discover that there's a blank AcroField next to the OK
button. Fill it out, and click OK. The content will appear in
the HTML text field.

In theory, you could use this reader->browser communication
to forward the field data to an applet, and use iText on the
client side to create a new PDF to replace the PDF in the
object tag.

In practice, this is probably not only in violation with
the EULA, it also has the smell of being a hack.
I'm sure the examples I'm referring to don't work on all
browser/reader versions, and that's sufficient reason for
a NO-GO when I'm asked for my opinion.
I've made these examples because I was asked if it's possible
to establish a communication between HTML and PDF; however,
I wasn't asked for my opinion.
best regards,
Bruno

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