Apply a form fillable "layer" on PDF files

[Geo5C4F]

Hi everyone,

I've PDF files form with some fields already filled (from scan).

I would like create the rest of the form with fillable fields.
I know how to create a fillable form with Acrobat but is it possible to create a "template" to apply the fillable form on each PDF file without recreate on each PDF the fillable form ?

I don't know if my explanation is clear but don't hesitate to ask me questions.

Thank you for your help.

[try67 · Accepted solution]

If the fields appear in the same place on each form then you can use the Replace Pages command to insert the pages from the new file over the ones in the old one. This will keep all fields in tact and you could then save the new file under a different name.

[Geo5C4F]

Thank you very much ! 

Best regards !

[training_6623]

Could I ask a question on this thread please, I appreciate it's a few years old.

I have a similar problem. I have a document with about 40 pages and a lot of fields on it. The fields will be identical on each document, but the text behind the fields will be different.

Is it possible to create a template of form fields only? I would have thought "replace pages" would replace the text; the whole page in its entirety? Thank you.

[try67]

Yes, you can create a template object from a blank page with just fields on it. Then spawn copies from it and use the Replace Pages command to replace the underlying background with the actual contents from another PDF.

[training_6623]

Thank you - could the template include 40 pages of field forms, each different? I tried creating a template before but it copied the entire page, including the text behind the fields.

So what I need to do is keep all the fields, but remove the background text first, and then save that as a template. I don't suppose there is a quick way of removing the background is there?!

[try67]

Each template can only be a single page. And yes, it includes the entire page's contents. If you want a template with just fields then you need to use a blank page, with only fields on it.

[training_6623]

OK thanks - that's not going to work for me unfortunately. I see that you wrote a script, but you say that the script does not carry across any validations, etc. I think I am just going to have to do a lengthy copy and paste!

[try67]

Why wouldn't the solution I suggested work for you?

If you want to discuss it further privately, feel free to send me a PM.

[training_6623]

Happy to discuss on here for the moment because it helps other people!

My document is about 40 pages and each one has different fields on it, so if I create one template for each page it'll take forever. HOWEVER looking at the posts below, it looks like I could create a blank document with just the fields in it - laborious but not impossible, it just involves copying the fields into a blank file - and then save that something called "form overlay", then select the document I want to add those fields to as the "background" to "form overlay" and do this each time. That would work, I think?

[try67]

I don't quite follow what you're trying to achieve. Do all 40 pages need to have identical fields, but with unique names? In that case, create a new file with a blank page, copy the fields to it, then define it as a Template and spawn 40 copies. Then use the Replace Pages command to insert the pages from the original over the blank spawned pages in the new file with the unique fields, and you're done.

[training_6623]

No, there are different fields on each page - that's what is making this so tricky. I am practising with copying the fields into a blank document now and then adding the 'background'.

[Bernd Alheit]

Use a blank document with 40 pages. And use Replace Pages.

[training_6623]

YES! That worked. Thank you very much. I still need to do some tweaking but that has saved a huge amount of time. When I tried 'replace page' earlier, it didn't move the fields over. So this method has worked and hopefully will help someone else:

1. Create a blank document with however many pages you need

2. Copy the fields over one page at a time (trying to do it all at once crashed Acrobat)

3. Replace pages with all the pages from document

Ta da!

[training_6623]

Ha - that didn't work. The background is only allowed to be one page from a document, so it copies page 1 of the original document across all 40- plus pages of the blank field document!

[luser47]

I am interested in a solution to this as well.

What I think Geo5C4F wants to do is combine a scanned page and a template, with certain assumptions: (1) the scanned page is one of many scanned pages but each scanned page has form fields (text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons) that are blank, (2) the locations of the form fields do not change from scanned page to scanned page, and (3) the user has created a template PDF that has all the form fields in the right locations on an otherwise blank page.  The idea is to overlay the template onto one scanned document, allow the user or someone else later to edit those form fields, and then perhaps flatten the layers, print it, etc.  Then, for the next scanned document, the user overlays the same template over that new scanned document as well.  This avoids the need to manually add the exact same form fields in the exact same place for each scanned document.

Using "Replace Pages", the template PDF page can replace the scanned page, but the other content that was on the scanned page is no longer there.  This is the same as just opening the template PDF by itself.

I created a template PDF (a separate PDF file that is one blank page with some form fields - text, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc.) and the form behaves correctly on its own.  I can open a scanned document and then import the template PDF as a new layer, and then I can see the content of the scanned document and on top of that I can see the checkboxes/radio buttons of the template PDF.  I don't see the text form fields because those are empty, but if I typed text into those fields in the template PDF, I would see that text.  The problem is that I cannot interact with those checkboxes or text fields.

What I would like to do is open a one-page scanned document, import the template PDF as a layer that overlays the content  of the scanned document, click on checkboxes of the template, enter text in the text fields of the template, and then flatten/print/save.

[luser47]

I am attempting to exactly that.  I get the same result.  The template is overlaid on the scanned document and I can see the scanned document beneath the form fields and checkboxes, but I cannot interact with the form fields or checkboxes.

Using Acrobat DC.

[try67]

Did you use the Replace Pages command?

[luser47]

Yes.  The scanned page PDF and the template overlay page PDF are both one-page PDFs.  If I open the scanned page PDF and then use the replace pages command to replace the scanned page PDF with the overlay page PDF, the scanned page PDF goes away and I have the overlay page PDF.  What we're trying to do is have the overlay page overlaid on top of the scanned page, so that we can see the content of the scanned page underneath the form fields of the overlay page so that we can fill in the form fields that came from the overlay page PDF on top of the scanned content from the scanned page.

[luser47]

Based on try67's suggestion, here is what worked for me:

I have paper forms that I receive that are partially filled out with information that changes from form to form, day to day.  So this one-page scanned page has fixed text that doesn't change from form to form, has some text that changes from form to form (because those parts of the form are filled in before it gets to me), and has some spaces for me to fill in and boxes for me to check.  The places for me to fill in and check are always in the same place on every form.

Starting with one of the scanned forms, I asked Acrobat DC to "Prepare Form" and Acrobat generated a set of form fields (text boxes, check boxes, etc.).  I cleaned that up, moving fields a little, giving them meaningful names, deleting things that Acrobat thought were for me to fill in but aren't, etc.  Acrobat can't tell whether three boxes are to be check boxes (e.g., each can be checked or unchecked) or a radio button set (e.g., only one can be checked at a time) so those were manually specified.

Once I had the form fields where I wanted them and cleaned up the form, I closed the "Prepare Form" ribbon and opened the "Edit PDF" ribbon.  Acrobat had parsed the content of my scanned form into various objects (text boxes, lines, etc.) and I just deleted all of those objects until all I had was a blank page with the form fields that I put there in the Prepare Form steps.  I saved that as a new file I called "form_overlay.PDF".

Now, each time I have to process a scanned form that comes as a PDF, I first open the form_overlay.PDF.  Then I select "Add Background" from the "Edit PDF" menu and under source, I select the "File" radio button and select the scanned form to be my background.  Since nothing on the scanned form itself is to be edited (all the edits are to the form overlay), that works.  Once the form fields are edited, I can just save that document.  I guess I could flatten the layers so that the background and the form fields are one layer, but I don't know why that would be needed.