PDF EXCEL DATA MERGE

Forum|Forum|9 years ago
January 18, 2017
2 replies
1438 views

I have a form (dd form 1354) that only allows ten items per page typed manually. there are 192 pages of information. the work around I have been using is to format a spread sheet to print iin the correct locations on the printed form. Now the people who need the completed forms want the form electronically to be able to use the electronic signature feature. Is there a way to merge the data from excel into the PDF form. I am currently using Adobe Acrobat XI pro and excel 2013. The form was created in Adobe Designer 9.0 and is password protected (A government form).

PDF forms

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NKOWA555

Inspiring

Download the following visual studio project:

www.nk-inc.com/downloads/SpreadSheetPDF.zip

Run the compiled exe in the bin\debug folder.

Let me know if you need custom programming or design.

www.nk-inc.com/support/sales/

NKOWA555

Inspiring

Q: Is there a way to merge the data from excel into the PDF form.

A:1)Yes, I believe it may be possible to hook the form up to a ODBC data source using Adobe's built in functions; but, I'm not sure if it will work for your Excel file. And you may have to ask someone else for instructions.

A:2) You may also create a custom .NET script with iTextSharp and/or FDFToolkit.net to either "merge" the data with a blank form and save to file or output to web browser. Or you can also generate an XFDF, FDF, or XDP file that points to a blank form, and when it is opened in Adobe Reader it automatically "populates" the fields with the data from the data source record.

FYI: Even though the form is password protected, you still may be able to import the data into the blank form by creating an FDF, XFDF, or XDP file. You just won't be able to edit the form fields, but you can probably type in them.

Note: The form can only be unlocked if it doesn't contain both an open AND an owner(modify) password; otherwise you would have to use brute force to change the password. If it has just one password, say the owner password, then the passwords can be removed and the form unlocked.

See example #3:

www.fdftoolkit.net/examples/

UPDATE (Latest): I was able to successfully unlock the PDF form using iText. The form was created in LiveCycle and "saved as" a "Static XFA 8 PDF form". So you can merge the data from an excel sheet with the blank form after it has been unlocked, or you can create an XDP file, and just open the XDP file in Adobe Reader and it will populate the blank PDF form with the data in the XDP file.