Thanks for replying 1T3XT, and sorry if I did not make my requirements clear.
Your interpretation (1) is correct: we normally serve up read-only PDF's via FOP to our web-apps, but now we have a requirement for our end users to have some documents that are mostly filled in, but have a few fields where the end-user can fill in some of the details and save the PDF, and return it via soft or hard-copy back to our business (at the moment, and to give you are feel for what we do, these are insurance application forms). Our document-generator works in a fairly standard way. It has various XSLT transforms for each kind of document, and the various web-based applications serve up XML to the document generator component to turn them into PDFs via FOP transform, to be presented to the user screen. I originally hoped that the PDF format would allow me to add some identifiers in the FOP stage where some text fields and checkboxes are rendered to allow an itext post-processing stage to understand those identifiers for replacement with the AcroForm elements, but from what you say it needs to be done in a fairly brittle way: via coordinates. This might be possible but would make the generation process very rigid. Thanks for your explanation of the basic FOP structure. I did try to look at one of documents with the RUP tool which illuminated some of this structure. Unfortunately the tool froze, so I didn't pursue it much further, but I can see I need to spend a bit more time understanding the PDF internals! It is good to know that Annotations can be layered on top of the existing structure. I will need to think how we can do this in the best way ... if it proves too brittle, I may recommend that some of our documents are just configured to be built directly with itext with no FOP involvement at all. That may turn out to be more controllable (and more fun - who enjoys writing FOP transforms anyway?). I'd already seen the first 15 minutes of the XML Forms Architecture presentation (on parleys) that you suggested before I wrote to the forum, but its been a busy day today, so maybe sometime this weekend to finish it, although I guess it was linked to your 2nd interpretation of my requirement. Cheers! Rob As an aside, I was in Ghent with my wife not long ago - a beautiful city! (I also enjoyed watching the finish of a pro cycle race). -- View this message in context: http://itext-general.2136553.n4.nabble.com/Can-itext-post-process-selective-PDF-elements-to-make-them-editable-tp4624444p4626878.html Sent from the iText - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ iText-questions mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/itext-questions iText(R) is a registered trademark of 1T3XT BVBA. Many questions posted to this list can (and will) be answered with a reference to the iText book: http://www.itextpdf.com/book/ Please check the keywords list before you ask for examples: http://itextpdf.com/themes/keywords.php
