MichaelBuen/pdf-fill-form

Fill PDF forms and return either filled PDF or PDF created from rendered page images.

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.

Libary 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). ##Features

• NEW version 3.0.0: Updated QT library to version 5 (by Rob Davarnia @robdvr).

• Version 2.0.0__: Updated nan library to version 2.4.0. Now pdf-fill-form works also with all latest node.js versions. Tested using 0.12.0, v4.4.7, v5.2.0, v6.3.0, v6.8.0, v6.9.1

• Supports reading and writing the following PDF form field types: TextField and Checkbox

• You can write following files:

  • PDF
  • PDF where pages are converted to images

• All the work is done in memory - no temporary files created

• Results are returned in Node.js Buffer -object

• Not using the PDFtk -executable - instead we use the Poppler library

##Examples ###Using promises

var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');

pdfFillForm.read('test.pdf')
.then(function(result) {
    console.log(result);
}, function(err) {
	console.log(err);
});

var pdfFillForm = require('pdf-fill-form');
var fs = require('fs');

pdfFillForm.write('test.pdf', { "myField": "myField fill value" }, { "save": "pdf" } )
.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);
});

###Using callbacks 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" }

##Installation

###OS X Preferable method to install library dependencies is via Homebrew

$ brew install qt5 cairo poppler --with-qt5

After dependencies are successfully installed, you can install the library:

$ npm install 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

If you still run into issues, or had an existing qt installed try to force link it:

brew linkapps qt5
brew link --force qt5

###Linux - Ubuntu (trusty)

$ sudo apt-get install libpoppler-qt5-dev libcairo2-dev
$ npm install pdf-fill-form

###Linux - Debian (jessie)

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

##Todo

• Tests
• Refactoring
• Support for other form field types than CheckBox and TextField

##Authors

• Tommi Pisto

##Contibutors

• Ethan Goldblum
• Tyler Iguchi
• Rob Davarnia
• Fabrice Ongenae
• Juwan Yoo

License

MIT

NOTE ABOUT LIBRARY DEPENDENCIES!
Poppler has GPL license. Cairo has LGPL.