pdftk-fill-pdf

!pdftk-fill-pdf

Automate PDF Form Population with Node.js: Leveraging PDFtk for Dynamic Form Filling and XFDF Generation

PDFtk is required!

- fills multiple form fields using same acrofield name ✔️
- handles checkboxes ✔️
- handles undefined and null values with empty string ✔️
- all asynchronous ✔️
- returns Buffer ✔️
- exposes pdftk and xfdf for customization ✔️
- written in typescript ✔️

#### Install

``
npm i pdftk-fill-pdf
`

Examples

#### basic usage

`js
// commonJS
const pdfFill = require('pdftk-fill-pdf').default;
// ES6 modules
import pdfFill from 'pdftk-fill-pdf';

// key is fieldname in PDF
const fillData = {
test1: 'abcdefghchijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456',
test2: 'another text',
test_number: 123456789,
test_special_chars:
'ěščřžýáíéúůťńóú жжжююю ć, ń, ó, ś, ź Ä/ä, Ö/ö, Ü/ü /{}"?>:{',
test_checkbox: true,
test_radio: true,
test_null: null,
test_undefined: undefined,
};

// your code
try {
const pdfBuffer = await pdfFill.fill({
pdfPath: 'test/test.pdf',
data: fillData,
// optional, temporary file path root
// tempPath: '/tmp',
});

// do with buffer whatever you want i.e. write it into file
fs.writeFileSync('./test/test_result.pdf', pdfBuffer, { encoding: 'utf8' });
} catch (err) {
console.error(err);
}
`

#### Generate xfdf

`js
const fillData = {
test1: 'abcdefghchijklmnopqrstuvwxyz123456',
test2: 'another text',
test_number: 123456789,
};

try {
const xfdfString = await pdfFill.generateXfdf({
pdfPath: 'test/test.pdf', // used for correct Xfdf href
data: fillData, // same data as above,
// tempPath: '/tmp', // optional, temporary file path root
});

console.log(xfdfString);
} catch (err) {
console.error(err);
}
`

#### Your own pdftk execution

docs: pdftk the pdf toolkit

`js
try {
// ...
// node.js exec options
const OPTIONS = {
timeout: 100000,
maxBuffer: 200 * 1024,
};
const cmd = fill_form ${xfdfFile} output ${generatedPdfFile} need_appearances;
const stdout = await pdfFill.execPdftk(cmd, OPTIONS);
} catch (err) {
console.log(err);
}
``