[plug] [OT] PDF Conversions

[Timothy White]

Onno Benschop wrote:

> Timothy White wrote:
>
>> Ok, my mistake. pdftops does give the correct ps. Unfortunately it still
>> doesn't help. It appears that the text is still in some obscure format.
>> I was hoping for something as easy as a regex like s/Text in PDF/New
>> text for PS/ and being able to modify the ps like that. I had a simple
>> text document which I converted to ps and I could do this. But these
>> more complex documents and other PS files I have created from documents,
>> while retaining text as text, they seem to obscure the text.
>
>
> I've been watching your discussion from the sidelines because I was
> completely unsure as to why you were jumping though all these hoops.
> Now I understand that you are attempting to modify a printable file.
> Presumably you're attempting to do something like a mail-merge, but
> playing with the output which you have in PostScript.
>
> My advise would be to generate the content separately, then merge the
> two.
>
> You can generate PDF from within PHP, there are a few free tools
> around to do this.
>
> Perhaps this will set you on a different train of thought.
>
> Ultimately, I think you need to discuss what you're really trying to
> solve, not how you're trying to solve it.
>
Ok. basically I'm building a web 'portal' for scouts. All the forms that
we need to fill out are usually repeated data (so much so that the only
thing that changes that each scouts has to fill out is the date and
signature.) I have a copy of all the forms in PDF, but unfortunately
it's not in Form format (else I could use FDF using pdftk.)
After reading a little more on PDF I decided that I wasn't going to get
down on my hands and knees to beg Adobe for an official binary FDF
library for use in PDF so unless I could somehow get the PDF's into form
format I would have edit them differently.

I understand that I can get copys of the forms in word format but the
template is a little stuffed up and broken. So maybe I should be looking
for another solution that would allow me to recreate the forms and the
export them to a variety of formats. I hope the PDF is a format
available for export because being web driven, it means that most people
would be able to print the forms.

The other reason I was hoping I could get it working without modifying
the original PDF's or making a 'print' overlay was so that when a new
form is released it can just be dropped in, have some default 'dummy'
place holder variables filled in and then used.
 From some of what I've seen FDF solves some of these problems but
unless I can easily get the PDF's into form format, I'm stuffed.

Thanks

Tim


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