PDFStamper fails on several PDF files (itext 5.5.1)

Question

I'm trying to fill PDF forms with data and got PDFStamper (itext version 5.5.1) to work with several PDF files, but on some it always fails. Sample code:

PdfReader reader = new PdfReader(new FileInputStream("C:/Temp/source.pdf"));
PdfStamper stamper = new PdfStamper(reader, new FileOutputStream("C:/Temp/temp.pdf"));
stamper.close();

Two different error messages until now, first one:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.AbstractMethodError: javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory.setFeature(Ljava/lang/String;Z)V
    at com.itextpdf.xmp.impl.XMPMetaParser.createDocumentBuilderFactory(XMPMetaParser.java:423)
    at com.itextpdf.xmp.impl.XMPMetaParser.<clinit>(XMPMetaParser.java:71)
    at com.itextpdf.xmp.XMPMetaFactory.parseFromBuffer(XMPMetaFactory.java:167)
    at com.itextpdf.xmp.XMPMetaFactory.parseFromBuffer(XMPMetaFactory.java:153)
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfStamperImp.close(PdfStamperImp.java:337)
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfStamper.close(PdfStamper.java:208)

Second:

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
[...]
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class com.itextpdf.xmp.impl.XMPMetaParser
    at com.itextpdf.xmp.XMPMetaFactory.parseFromBuffer(XMPMetaFactory.java:167)
    at com.itextpdf.xmp.XMPMetaFactory.parseFromBuffer(XMPMetaFactory.java:153)
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfStamperImp.close(PdfStamperImp.java:337)
    at com.itextpdf.text.pdf.PdfStamper.close(PdfStamper.java:208)

The error messages vary, maybe because of different environments (full application vs. test class, but both using itext-5.5.1.jar).

One of the working PDF form was created using OpenOffice Writer, which produced a version 1.4 (Acrobat 5.x) document. The failing PDF form was created using Acrobat Distiller 7.0.5, pdf version 1.6 (Acrobat 7.x). I already tried to convert it down to version 1.4/5.x without luck.

Any ideas?

@BrunoLowagie Files are available: [File 1](http://www.kurvas.de/temp/g7701.pdf) [File 2](http://www.kurvas.de/temp/g7701-2.pdf) Two versions of the same file, created with different PDF generators. — chluebke, May 26 '14 at 06:11
Hmm... I couldn't reproduce the problem, but I notice something in your error message: do you by any chance have two different iText versions in your CLASSPATH? — Bruno Lowagie, May 26 '14 at 07:48
No, I haven't. But you hint led me to the right direction. I have an older version of Apache Xerces in the classpath which causes the error. I'll have to look if I can safely replace it by the current one which looks fine on first view. Thank's alot! — chluebke, May 27 '14 at 09:31
That's good news! That probably explains the `AbstractMethodError`. — Bruno Lowagie, May 27 '14 at 09:49

score 3 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

3

We had the same problem in our project, where we used FOP for generating PDF and iText for PDF signing.

FOP has a dependency on the xercesImpl:xerces jar. This jar is important for JRE <= 1.4 but it isn't needed in the JRE>1.4 and works without it (more information on JDK 1.6 and Xerces?).

Ps: Check that you do not have the xerces library on classpath, if so remove it.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:00

Community

1
1

answered Aug 18 '15 at 22:56

Pavol Slany

31
3

score 0 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 23 '18 at 13:23

I had the same problem (with xerces), I could fix it by adding an exclusion in my dependency:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>net.sf.barcode4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>barcode4j-fop-ext-complete</artifactId>
        <version>2.0</version>
        <type>jar</type>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>xerces</groupId>
                <artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

PDFStamper fails on several PDF files (itext 5.5.1)

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