PDF Fill Form (pdf-fill-form) is Node.js native C library for filling PDF forms. Created PDF file is returned back as Node.js Buffer object for further processing or saving - whole process is done in memory. Library offers methods to return filled PDF also as PDF file where pages are converted to images.
Library uses internally Poppler QT5 for PDF form reading and filling. Cairo is used for PDF creation from page images (when parameter { "save": "imgpdf" } is used).
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Supports reading and writing the following PDF form field types: TextField, Checkbox, and Radio button
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You can write following files:
- PDF where pages are converted to images
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All the work is done in memory - no temporary files created
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Results are returned in Node.js Buffer -object
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Not using the PDFtk -executable - instead we use the Poppler library
Read from file
var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
pdfFillForm.read('test.pdf')
.then(function(result) {
console.log(result);
}, function(err) {
console.log(err);
});
Read from file buffer
var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
pdfFillForm.readBuffer(fs.readFileSync('test.pdf'))
.then(function(result) {
console.log(result);
}, function(err) {
console.log(err);
});
Write from file
var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
var fs = require('fs');
pdfFillForm.write('test.pdf', { "myField": "myField fill value" }, { "save": "pdf", 'cores': 4, 'scale': 0.2, 'antialias': true } )
.then(function(result) {
fs.writeFile("test123.pdf", result, function(err) {
if(err) {
return console.log(err);
}
console.log("The file was saved!");
});
}, function(err) {
console.log(err);
});
Write from file buffer
var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
var fs = require('fs');
pdfFillForm.writeBuffer(fs.readFileSync('test.pdf'), { "myField": "myField fill value" }, { "save": "pdf", 'cores': 4, 'scale': 0.2, 'antialias': true } )
.then(function(result) {
fs.writeFile("test123.pdf", result, function(err) {
if(err) {
return console.log(err);
}
console.log("The file was saved!");
});
}, function(err) {
console.log(err);
});
To read all form fields:
var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
var pdfFields = pdfFillForm.readSync('test.pdf');
console.log(pdfFields);
To write form fields (synchronous) to PDF:
var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
var fs = require('fs');
// Use here the field names you got from read
var pdf = pdfFillForm.writeSync('test.pdf',
{ "myField": "myField fill value" }, { "save": "pdf" } );
fs.writeFileSync('filled_test.pdf', pdf);
To write form fields (aynchronous) to PDF:
var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
var fs = require('fs');
// Use here the field names you got from read
pdfFillForm.writeAsync('test.pdf',
{ "myField": "myField fill value" }, { "save": "pdf" },
function(err, pdf) {
fs.writeFile("filled_test.pdf", pdf, function(err){});
}
);
To write form fields to PDF where pages are converted to images:
Use parameter { "save": "imgpdf" }
Just set the radio button field Value to the caption of the item you want to select.
For example if you have a radio button for gender called "Gender1" with options captioned as "Male" or "Female" then passing in the field {"Gender1": "Male"} will select the male radio button, as expected.
Preferable method to install library dependencies is via Homebrew
First, make sure the XCode Command Line Tools are installed correctly
xcode-select --install
Also make sure pkg-config is installed correctly
brew install pkg-config
Then install the Poppler and Cairo formulae using brew
NB: Poppler contains all the necessary qt
version 5 depencencies.
brew install poppler cairo
Also export environment variables used by the compiler during the pdf-fill-form
installation
export LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/qt/lib
export CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/qt/include
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/usr/local/opt/qt/lib/pkgconfig
NB: You may also append the above export
commands to your ~/.bash_profile
or ~/.zshrc
file for persistency.
Finally, install the package using npm or yarn
$ npm install pdf-fill-form
$ yarn add pdf-fill-form
Homebrew users who get error regarding xcb-shm
The fix is to add this to your bash profile / environment: export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/X11/lib/pkgconfig
$ sudo apt-get install libpoppler-qt5-dev libcairo2-dev
$ npm install pdf-fill-form
To be sure to have the required packages, re-synchronize the package index files from their sources :
$ sudo apt-get update
Then install packages :
$ sudo apt-get install libcairo2-dev libpoppler-qt5-dev
$ npm install pdf-fill-form
I mostly recommand to install this package to have better support with fonts :
$ sudo apt-get install poppler-data
First, enable the PowerTools repository :
$ yum config-manager --set-enabled PowerTools
Install the dependencies :
$ dnf install poppler-qt5-devel cairo cairo-devel
Then install the package using npm or yarn :
$ npm install pdf-fill-form
$ yarn add pdf-fill-form
Not currently supported
- Tests
- Refactoring
- Support for other form field types than TextField, Checkbox, and Radio button
v5.1.0 (15.3.2021)
- Fix the v8 namespace (by @gedaiu)
v5.0.0 (6.11.2019)
- New options startPage and endPage for the imgpdf feature to limit which pages are generated. Page numbers indexed from 0 (by Derick Naef @ochimo).
- Allow source to come in a buffer an not a filename (by Dustin Harmon @dfharmon)
- Support for Node 13 (by @florianbepunkt)
v4.1.0 (10.9.2018)
- Support for Node 10 (by @florianbepunkt)
v4.0.0 (14.12.2017)
- #45 Set radio button "value" to the poppler button state (by Albert Astals Cid @tsdgeos)
- Added feature allowing for parallelization of the imgpdf feature, also allows for settings scale and whether antialiasing should be used (by Albert Astals Cid @tsdgeos).
v3.3.0 (14.12.2017)
- #49 Set radio button "value" to the poppler button state (by Mihai Saru @MitzaCoder)
v3.2.0 (24.5.2017)
- Support for radio buttons (by Matt Cherry @mttchrry)
- Ethan Goldblum
- Tyler Iguchi
- Rob Davarnia
- Fabrice Ongenae
- Juwan Yoo
- Andreas Gruenbacher
- Andrei Dracea
- Emil Sedgh
- Matt Cherry
- Mario Ferreira
- Mihai Saru @MitzaCoder
- Albert Astals Cid @tsdgeos
- Florian Bischoff @florianbepunkt
- Derick Naef @ochimo
- Dustin Harmon @dfharmon
- Szabo Bogdan @gedaiu
MIT
NOTE ABOUT LIBRARY DEPENDENCIES! Poppler has GPL license. Cairo has LGPL.