kai-pinckard/pdf-tools

pdf-tools

The main goal of pdf-tools is to create a pdf filing microservice. Pdf-tools requires three inputs:a pdf file to fill, the data to fill it, and a data-to-pdf mapping file. The data must be in json format as must the data-to-pdf mapping file. The data-to-pdf mapping file allows any one to easily use the software to fill a new pdf without having to touch any of the application's code

I will create a tool for linking json data files with the appropriate form fields to fill. The user data will be read in with json.load to create a python object for easy transitioning.

The pdftk tool is very useful for this process the most useful commands are

To create an empty fdf file: pdftk <PDF_FILE> generate_fdf output <OUTPUT_FILE_NAME>

To read a json data file: this package can handle this using json.load

To create a mapping file: This package allows the user to easily create a document which lists which json data fields correspond to which form fields

To fill the fdf: This package can use the mapping file to fill out the fdf with the data from a specific json file. Allowing for form filling automation.

To fill a pdf with a properly filled in fdf file:

pdftk <PDF_TO_FILL> fill_form <FDF_FILE> output <FILLED_PDF_NAME>

NOTE FORM FILLING actually is working its just that fields that are not being filled in must be removed from the fdf file otherwise this will throw null value errors. When only the fields that are being filled in with values are present in the fdf file everything is working. Some example commands that were used to fill a form can be found in the commands.txt file.

Note: I am removing the fdfgen dependency. The only thing that it seems to do is fill in the slots in the fdf file. I think I can do this easily enough and remove a dependency.