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We have developed online software that allows an administrator in the software to upload files. Many of these files are PDF's. Numerous customers would like the ability to upload fill-able PDF's (PDF forms) and have their users save the PDF form right to the server as opposed to having to download the file, fill it out, and re-upload it. Our software is built using mainly PHP and MySQL, although the basic web languages such as HTML and CSS come into play. We also use Javascript and jQuery to make many features work.

I've done hours and hours of searching and haven't found an exact answer to this question: We would like to be able to have fill-able PDF's that either save directly to the web server or have the ability to grab the data from the PDF form that the user filled out and save it to a database. With the latter approach, I assume we could use PHP's fdf and input the data stored in the database into a blank PDF and show it to the user if requested later.

A preferred approach would be to use PHP and save the PDF form directly to the server, but I haven't found any open source options or suggestions on how to write my own method.

Edit: I've attempted to use Adobe Acrobat Pro's functionality to submit a form. When submitting a form I haven't been able to get any information via PHP's $_POST, $_FILES, or $_REQUEST (From what I've read Acrobat POSTS the data). I attemped to follow the directions here: Can a PDF fillable form post itself to an HTTPS URL? but to no avail.

Edit: The software also needs to have the ability to use PDF's, not create HTML <form>s. The reason behind is the software is for high schools and administrators at high schools don't want to have use an online editor to create a form when they already have a PDF created. An alternative could be to have the administrator upload a PDF and create a form from that. The question would then remain - how to push the data saved from an HTML form to a copy of the PDF later on? By using PHP's fdf functionality?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Josh Davis
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  • What's the point of using PDF? Why not have the users input all of the data using a `
    `, then save that to a PDF? In my experience, customers suggest things (like using PDF) because they don't know of the alternatives. I know it's not the answer you were looking for: just spitballing. :)
     – timgavin Sep 09 '13 at 22:55
  • Thanks Tim. The only issue with this is that the PDF's will be uploaded by the admins for a particular school (the software is for high schools). The PDF's will be different for each school, and for a normal user uploading an already created PDF is much easier than using online software to create a form. – Josh Davis Sep 09 '13 at 23:04
  • Having different PDFs for each school could be an issue, no? If you have a ton of different PDFs, how many algorithms are you going to have to write to deal with each PDF type to get it all into one database where it makes sense? using a form, you could input all the data from many different schools into the db and then create PDFs from there - eliminating the step of extracting FROM a PDF only to get it back into a PDF. The HS admins don't create the form - you do - they just enter data into it - just like they would an editable PDF. :) – timgavin Sep 09 '13 at 23:50
  • Also, you can build a browser interface right into your app that will pull up an online form, customized for each school. that way, they wouldn't know if they were using a form or a PDF - it would just be a bunch of input fields to them. – timgavin Sep 09 '13 at 23:51
  • I've considered that option. From a non-technical standpoint, though, the users have expressed that they would rather use their own custom PDF's they've created. Most are already created (such as physical forms, assumption of liability, etc.) by the state or school districts. As far as creating an algorithm for each school, I would hope to be able to just post all fields and then grab the whole array via the PHP $_POST variable and store them via their key and value in a text type field in mysql. – Josh Davis Sep 10 '13 at 03:20
  • I'm not a PDF expert by any means, but I'm not sure how you'd go about getting $_POST from a PDF? Especially if they're already created and in many different formats and versions. I'm guessing you'd have to upload the PDFs and then scrape the text out of them, and if they're in a bunch of different formats... well, that's gonna be a nightmare - unless they all have the same fields... – timgavin Sep 10 '13 at 03:27

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