How to fill an existing PDF document programmatically

Question

I have a PDF document which wasn't created using Adobe LifeCycle Designer. What I am looking to do is pre-fill out the common fields in the document.

I have looked into this many of the options available to me from using iTextSharp and PDFSharp but unsure of how to use it correctly.

I recently came across this article: FillPDF which has a good documentation but didn't match with what I was creating.

I also was reading about iTextSharp which can be imported in VS and used but I am not sure where to start. I saw a lot of tutorials but none of them describe how to start.

Please help...

Try this, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/583629/how-can-i-insert-an-image-with-itextsharp-in-an-existing-pdf — johnny, May 29 '14 at 13:48
possible duplicate of [ITextSharp insert text to an existing pdf](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3992617/itextsharp-insert-text-to-an-existing-pdf) — johnny, May 29 '14 at 13:49

vico · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-29T14:09:32.580

I recently worked on a huge project with itextsharp

http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/Article/88/iTextSharp-Drawing-shapes-and-Graphics http://www.mikesdotnetting.com/Article/81/iTextSharp-Working-with-Fonts

here are some things to get you started

but as far as reading from a pdf and then outputting back you will need some regex to help you with that.

here is one of the sample code i have ( this creates a header or footer on every new page event )

using CMS;
using CMS.Tags;
using CMS.Pages;
using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Collections.Specialized;
using System.Linq;
using System.Globalization;
using System.Net;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using iTextSharp.text;
using iTextSharp.text.html;
using iTextSharp.text.xml;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf;
using iTextSharp.text.pdf.draw;
using System.IO;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
using System.Text;
using System.util;

public class pdfPage : iTextSharp.text.pdf.PdfPageEventHelper
{
public override void OnEndPage(PdfWriter writer, Document doc)
    {
        PdfContentByte cb = writer.DirectContent;
        cb.SetLineWidth(1f);
        cb.SetCMYKColorStroke(66, 59, 57, 38);
        cb.MoveTo(30, 55);     
        cb.LineTo(doc.PageSize.Width - 30 , 55);     
        cb.Stroke();
        cb.MoveTo(185, 80);
        cb.LineTo(185, 25);
        cb.Stroke();

        ColumnText ct = new ColumnText(cb);
        BaseFont bfTimes = BaseFont.CreateFont(BaseFont.HELVETICA, BaseFont.CP1252, false);
        Font times = new Font(bfTimes, 10);
        times.SetColor(90, 90, 90);
        ct.SetSimpleColumn(new Phrase("text text", times), 60, 60, 175, 78, 15, Element.ALIGN_MIDDLE);
        ct.Go();
        times.SetColor(1, 73, 144);
        ct.SetSimpleColumn(new Phrase("text textn", times), 60, 38, 175, 55, 15, Element.ALIGN_MIDDLE);
        ct.Go();
        times.SetColor(90, 90, 90);
        ct.SetSimpleColumn(new Phrase("text here", times), 190, 60, doc.PageSize.Width - 32 , 78, 15, Element.ALIGN_RIGHT);
        ct.Go();
        times.SetColor(90, 90, 90);
        ct.SetSimpleColumn(new Phrase("text here", times), 190, 38, doc.PageSize.Width - 32 , 55, 15, Element.ALIGN_RIGHT);
        ct.Go();
    }
}

this is part of my code that starts a pdf

using (var ms = new MemoryStream())
        {
            using (var doc = new Document(PageSize.LETTER, 220f, 30f, 115f, 100f)){

                try
                {
                  pdfPage page = new pdfPage();
                  PdfWriter writer = PdfWriter.GetInstance(doc, ms);
                  writer.PageEvent = page;
                  doc.Open();

                iTextSharp.text.Image img = iTextSharp.text.Image.GetInstance(RESOURCE);
                img.ScalePercent(49f);
                //img.Width = doc.PageSize.Width;
                //img.Alignment = iTextSharp.text.Image.ALIGN_CENTER;
                img.SetAbsolutePosition(-8, 
                    doc.PageSize.Height - 180.6f);
                doc.Add(img);

and this is my output code ( as a download pdf directly created from server *notsaved on server )

}
                catch (Exception ex)
                {
                  //Log error;
                }
                finally
                {
                  doc.Close();
                }

            }
            Response.Clear();
              //Response.ContentType = "application/pdf";
              Response.ContentType = "application/octet-stream";
              Response.AddHeader("content-disposition", "attachment;filename= Company " + namefile + ".pdf");
              Response.Buffer = true; 
              Response.Clear();
              var bytes = ms.ToArray();
              Response.OutputStream.Write(bytes, 0, bytes.Length);
              Response.OutputStream.Flush();

        }

Thank you for the articles. I am just really confused about the starting out part. I create a new a new ASP.NET Empty Web Application in C# and then import the iTextSharp and create a aspx page? — Si8, May 29 '14 at 14:06
ok then here are some basic code sample i had that goes from opening a new pdf from stream to outputting it gl — vico, May 29 '14 at 14:14
Thank you for taking the time to help a beginner and not downvote... Appreciate it. Accepted the answer. — Si8, May 29 '14 at 14:19

How to fill an existing PDF document programmatically

1 Answers1