Following up – I followed the code in the second link (github version here <https://github.com/mkl-public/testarea-pdfbox2/blob/master/src/test/java/mkl/testarea/pdfbox2/form/CreateCheckBox.java>) and wrote a slightly modified version of that worked. It looked like not setting the appearance streams was the issue.
On Tue, Dec 10, 2019 at 9:52 AM Jesse Zhou <jesse.z...@gusto.com> wrote: > Hello, > > I have a question about how pdf checkboxes work that I'm hoping someone > smarter than me can help explain. I have a PDF, in which I've added > checkboxes with an empty "down" appearance stream, but no other appearance > streams. The normal appearance stream is absent from these checkboxes. > > I've programmatically "checked" the checkboxes using PDFBox, and even > though the values are changed in the PDF internally, the PDF viewers that > I've used (Preview on macOS and Adobe Acrobat, Google Chrome's built-in > viewer) don't show the box as "checked". > > I'm guessing that it's because I haven't set the appearance stream. Is > this correct? > > Curiously though, the PDF Viewers will "check" the box if I click on them > while viewing them. If it is because of the appearance streams, generally > speaking, do PDF Viewers have a smart way of handling if an appearance > stream is absent? > > Looking for any guidance / direction. Here are some resources I've already > checked out. > > - > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43343232/how-to-add-a-border-to-a-checkbox-and-make-it-always-visible > - > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/43604973/creating-a-checkbox-and-printing-it-to-pdf-file-is-not-working-using-pdfbox-1-8/43606762 > > Thanks in advance! > -Jesse > -- *Jesse Zhou* Engineering | Employee Lifecycle | 408-504-6225 Gusto | The people platform built for small businesses Jesse works with Gusto
