Jspdf: Create a pdf from a pdf template

[aadamsx]

I'm looking to generate a pdf from an existing pdf "template". For example, the pdf "template" would have the layout, text, and "fields" -- all that would be left to do is fill in "fields" with data.

I would like to populate these fields with the appropriate data from a mongo collection, and generate a new pdf from it. Is this possible with this package?

For example, the following is part of a pdf document, the "fields" need to be populated with data I get from a collection:

[rexbarkdoll]

Just want to upvote this request. somehow using an existing PDF and allowing jsPDF to write on top of it.

[z3rodo7com]

This would be a huge improvement. Users could change templates without having to rewrite the entire javascript.

[aadamsx]

In the mean time, I found that using a combination of the following works great:

(1) PDFtk server to do the form fills of an existing template,

(2) a wrapper around PDFtk server for javascript -- in my case since I'm using Meteor I'm using pascoual/meteor-pdftk,

(3) and standard oozcitak/xmlbuilder-js to build the XFDF file used to populate the pdf with data.

It's actually straight forward when you get it all working. Not as easy as a single package to do everything of course, but when there's nothing else, you make it work.

From my research, the javascript/linux libraries to do pdf form fills are extremely limited. PDFtk is it in terms of quality and features as far as I know. I think there is one other package, the name escapes me at the moment, and from what I read it doesn't always work, etc. I think the wait on this and other packages to do form fill will be a long one I'm afraid.

YMMV of course, but since adopting the approach above, I've had zero issues.

Good luck.

[rexbarkdoll]

My current hack is to let the user fill out a form on a page, then those fields to load up javascript/localStorage variables which get fed into the PDF being generated. Then I add content based on if statements. I'm able to generate forms with custom content that way.

[aadamsx]

I thought about this approach, but I wanted more control over the interface or input, so I went the the web front end to populate the Mongo database. Then use this data to do a form full a long with business logic.

[enabek]

Any updates on this feature yet?

[shamoh19]

Any updates?

[gjulivan]

would be great to have this feature.

[fatso83]

@rexbarkdoll, I am not sure I understand what you were doing. Is the "pdf being generated" an existing pdf that gets some fields overlayed, or from scratch? I think this issue is about the former.

[Uzlopak]

Duplicate of #131