> On Fri, 12 Jan 2007 08:27, Craig FALCONER wrote: >> Cool! >> >> Damn cool! >> >> Superlatively cool! >> >> Does anyone know why so many linux apps tend to have completely >> non-intuitive names? Acroread is moderately obvious, but evince and >> flpsed >> don't seem to have anything to do with pdf. >> >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Ross Drummond [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >> Sent: Friday, 12 January 2007 12:07 a.m. >> To: CLUG mailing list >> Subject: flpsed > > Wait there's more. > > Those of you who viewed the flpsed example at; > > http://www.inet.net.nz/~rossd/example.pdf > > would have noticed that there is a brown "RESET form" button at the bottom > right of the 1st page. > > Pdf forms created in recent versions of Adobe's pdf creation software can > be > filled in and then printed. > > Pdfinfo tells me that the pdf file was created with Acrobat Distiller > 7.0.5 > for Macintosh. > > If I open the pdf with Adobe Acrobat Reader for Linux 7.0.8, I can fill in > the > form and print it. Unfortunately the reader does offer the option of > saving > the modified pdf like flpsed. > > Cheers Ross Drummond > >
form filling on a persistent/savable/editable basis with pdf involves buying the full version of acrobat (not cheap, and I think probably not linux) or playing with one of the libraries available for generating pdf files and filling in pdf forms. One of the more popular libraries is for python and called http://www.reportlab.org/rl_toolkit.html. Its generally a matter of interfacing between the fillable objects on the form, and a database, and some form of input/editing window. A number of the forms are interactive, meaning they will total columns of numbers, or replicate repetitive information on a form (eg an IRD form where you have to put your IRD number in more than one place, enter it once, and it appears in the other places). I believe that javascript is used to do the internal form logic, although I'd stand corrected on that. I believe you can also make fillable pdf forms with scribus, although I have not tried it in depth.
