PDF Fill in Forms

Markfre1

In my C/S app I deal with many government forms. First I have to save the PDF, convert to a png, put the png in the program (magic) and put the data fields on it. Png's are not that clear (actually lousy). I would like to write this part of the app over in AIM. The holy grail would be to save a fillable PDF government form, like a W2, map the fields in AIM, save and then print.

Aim is now allowing importing and mapping of Html forms. Tried converting a PDF to HTML but what the converters do is basically create a jpg with a front HTML page. This doesn't work for me.

Is it possible to display a fillable PDF and map fields? Anyone who uses forms, especially government forms, nothing can look as good or work as smooth. Advice wanted. Thanks.

Mark F.

tford

I don't think AwareIM can do this out of the box, but I wonder if using the API of PDFfiller might work:

https://www.pdffiller.com/en/features/api

I'm interested to hear what you learn.

Markfre1

Something like PDFiller is what I am trying to create. Using their api would cost us thousands a month. We have hundreds of CPA's processing thousands of forms each year and its part of our system. We would just love to be able to download a PDF and not have to convert to PNG, lose clarity, etc. Our printing is nice because we use PCL and have a PCL editing program to modify the printed forms. But we display the form on the screen, precalculated or allow the user to fill in information. A bonus would be able to print the screen form.

I wonder if AIM could write something where instead of using HTML and attaching fields we can display a pdf like an image but then overlay fields/attributes. That would be amazing. Right now we getting ready for year end, but may revisit this with Vlad later. IF you have any ideas, appreciated.

Mark f.

Markfre1

90% there. I've been able to convert a pdf to an html with all the formatting. Imported into AIM beautifully. But now I need to change the HTML before importing to make input fields. Then I should be able to map to aim attributes. Will let you know.

Mark F.

tford

Googling shows there are programs that convert fillable PDFs to HTML forms.

Would that get you one step closer?

Markfre1

So I downloaded a government form, non-fillable. Used a conversion program that converted it to HTML, js, and some other files I never heard of. Copied it all to the AIM/tomcat/webapps/... as per video. Form came on beautiful with graphic boxes, everything, when imported. So the questions at this point are. Can I find all the forms we use as a fillable PDF, or use acrobat and add entry fields, or will I have to edit the HTML and add the fields in the Html file. Only thing I am not sure of is if I add the fields in acrobat, will the pdf to html converter also convert those fields. Either way, it looks like I can get these form into AIM as html and map the fields. I've already done a lot of previous work printing html forms, so it would be nice if I can use the same import file for printing. This printing is actual pretty easy because in my previous HTML printing of invoices, you dealt with header and lines, which was somewhat complicated.

What is the best way for the entry form. Won't know until I try the different methods.

I'll let you all know, but pretty sure no roadblocks as the key was getting the form to display with all the graphics. Last thing. There are no graphics in the files created by the converter, but somehow it handles it all.

Mark F.

Markfre1

So some of the converters don't put the input fields in the html. They work in all different ways. I found 1 that converts to a single html file with everything embedded. It was very good but a few of the graphics were missing. So basically I need to find a good convert pdf to html5. Close but no cigar yet.

Mark f.