Flattening a Form

[Aaron Mulder <am...@gmail.com>]

Right now I have an "original" PDF document with blank form fields.

I've appended to the end a document revision that includes a set of
overrides to specify values for those form fields.  However, for a
variety of reasons I've ended up specifying appearance streams and
setting /NeedAppearances true as well.

I thought this was working pretty well, but I've run into two problems:

1. I have a printer you can send a PDF to, but it prints all form
fields blank (I guess, ignores appearance streams).  I believe I tried
the PrintPDF command line tool and it worked OK, but I'd rather just
send the PDF via lpr, for instance.

2. macOS Sierra in Preview (and thus Safari) no longer renders my
appearance streams, but uses some kind of default appearance instead
(default font size, positioning, checkbox icons, etc.).  Up to El
Capitan it worked fine.

For both these reasons I would prefer to eliminate the form fields
when I append to the original document, and make my appearance streams
just be content on the page, if possible.  I gather this is called
"flattening" and I saw something that said I should just remove the
AcroForm fields and the annotations would remain, or something like
that.

But my override goes in an element like this:

21 0 obj
<< /Type /Annot /T (SomeLabel) /DV () /Rect [ 383.519 702.104 473.519 717.761
] /FT /Tx /DA (/Helvetica 12 Tf 0 g) /F 4 /MK 2560 0 R /V (SomeValue)
/AP << /N 123 0 R >>
/Subtype /Widget >>

Now the AcroForm list of Fields includes 21 0 R, and object 21 0 is
also an annotation -- so I'm confused about how to remove the form
field but leave the annotation (aren't they the same?).  Other than
the AcroForm list, I don't see any other way that object 21 0 is
included in the document, and I know my appearance stream is not
included any way other than the reference in 21 0, so if I take out
the AcroForm fields won't the whole thing disappear?

Any tips on how to properly "flatten" this?

And any idea whether this is a likely way to solve the two problems
I've had?  Or is there some other mistake I'm making?

Thanks,
       Aaron

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Re: Flattening a Form

[Andreas Lehmkuehler <an...@lehmi.de>]

Hi,

I'm not a form expert, but how about using PDAcroForm#flatten? AFAIK this should 
do the trick.

BR
Andreas

Am 27.02.2017 um 03:52 schrieb Aaron Mulder:
> Right now I have an "original" PDF document with blank form fields.
>
> I've appended to the end a document revision that includes a set of
> overrides to specify values for those form fields.  However, for a
> variety of reasons I've ended up specifying appearance streams and
> setting /NeedAppearances true as well.
>
> I thought this was working pretty well, but I've run into two problems:
>
> 1. I have a printer you can send a PDF to, but it prints all form
> fields blank (I guess, ignores appearance streams).  I believe I tried
> the PrintPDF command line tool and it worked OK, but I'd rather just
> send the PDF via lpr, for instance.
>
> 2. macOS Sierra in Preview (and thus Safari) no longer renders my
> appearance streams, but uses some kind of default appearance instead
> (default font size, positioning, checkbox icons, etc.).  Up to El
> Capitan it worked fine.
>
> For both these reasons I would prefer to eliminate the form fields
> when I append to the original document, and make my appearance streams
> just be content on the page, if possible.  I gather this is called
> "flattening" and I saw something that said I should just remove the
> AcroForm fields and the annotations would remain, or something like
> that.
>
> But my override goes in an element like this:
>
> 21 0 obj
> << /Type /Annot /T (SomeLabel) /DV () /Rect [ 383.519 702.104 473.519 717.761
> ] /FT /Tx /DA (/Helvetica 12 Tf 0 g) /F 4 /MK 2560 0 R /V (SomeValue)
> /AP << /N 123 0 R >>
> /Subtype /Widget >>
>
> Now the AcroForm list of Fields includes 21 0 R, and object 21 0 is
> also an annotation -- so I'm confused about how to remove the form
> field but leave the annotation (aren't they the same?).  Other than
> the AcroForm list, I don't see any other way that object 21 0 is
> included in the document, and I know my appearance stream is not
> included any way other than the reference in 21 0, so if I take out
> the AcroForm fields won't the whole thing disappear?
>
> Any tips on how to properly "flatten" this?
>
> And any idea whether this is a likely way to solve the two problems
> I've had?  Or is there some other mistake I'm making?
>
> Thanks,
>        Aaron
>
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> To unsubscribe, e-mail: users-unsubscribe@pdfbox.apache.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: users-help@pdfbox.apache.org
>


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