[vox-tech] PDF Editing/Data Entry Question

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Charles McLaughlin (cmclaughlin at ucdavis.edu):

> I have a PDF file that I'd like to add a text entry box to.  The goal is 
> to have people download the file, type into it and print it out.
> 
> I know the commercial version of Adobe Acrobat offers this feature.  Are 
> there any FOSS programs available that do this?

These links brought to you courtesy of feedback postings to a recent
"Grumpy Editor's Guide to PDF Viewers" feature on LWN.net:  A reader
asked about PDF _editors_.

Reader evgeny said:

  Consider Panda/Pandaflex
  (http://www.stillhq.com/cgi-bin/blosxom/panda/). If Java is acceptable,
  see pdfbox (http://www.pdfbox.org/) and pjx
  (http://www.etymon.com/epub.html).

Reader DrBubba said:

  perl has the PDF::API2 bundle that I've used to break a series of pdf
  files down into pages and then reassemble them into a single document.
  This will require a little bit of coding on your part and the
  documentation with the module is a little bit spotty.

Reader tekNico said:

  $ apt-cache show pdftk
  ...
  If PDF is electronic paper, then pdftk is an electronic stapler-remover,
  hole-punch, binder, secret-decoder-ring, and X-Ray-glasses. Pdftk is a
  simple tool for doing everyday things with PDF documents. Keep one in the
  top drawer of your desktop and use it to:
   - Merge PDF documents
   - Split PDF pages into a new document
   - Decrypt input as necessary (password required)
   - Encrypt output as desired
   - Burst a PDF document into single pages
   - Report PDF on metrics, including metadata and bookmarks
   - Uncompress and re-compress page streams
   - Repair corrupted PDF (where possible)

  Author: Sid Steward <ssteward at accesspdf.com>
  Homepage: http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk

Which in turn got two replies.  Reader kfiles said:

  And pdftk itself uses the handy Java iText libraries for actual PDF
  composition/decomposition. iText can specifically address the author's
  desire to modify PDF content inline. And if you don't want to use
  run-time Java interpreting, you can copy pdftk's technique of
  precompiling to native code using gjc.

  See:
    http://www.lowagie.com/iText/ 

Reader liamh said:

  I had good luck with "Mad Builder PDF Assembler"
  http://thierry.schmit.free.fr/dev/mbtPdfAsm/enMbtPdfAsm2....
  It took a little while to figure out - you have to create an
  assembly/disassembly script - but it seems quite versatile.


I haven't personally investigated any of this stuff, but I've been
meaning to, Real Soon Now.

-- 
Cheers,   There are 10 types of people in this world, those who know quaternary,
Rick Moen those who only recently figured out Ron Fabre's "ternary" .sig, those
          who're completely confused, and those who hate self-referential jokes.