Floating Fields

I am evaluating ASPOSE as a possible replacement for my company’s correspondence needs in an upcoming release of our software products. I’ve liked what I’ve seen so far, but I’m not sure if you’re solution will fully solve our issues. Can you please clarify wether you support floating fields as they are defined in an acrobat PDF template file?

Here’s the situation:

1. We need to allow staff level users to create PDF templates in a mail merge format (floating fields). For example, letters with sentecnes like “We have on record that <> <>'s current balance is <>.” The template must define the data binding for the fields. Our current plan is to use Adobe Live Cycle Designer for this, unless you have a better idea. I didn’t see a WYSIWIG PDF editor among your products, and we do not want to create one ourselves.

2. Once templates are defined our system will need to be able to dynamically bind to the template and output a PDF with the values filled in and display it to a user.

3. In addition, these PDFs could contain form fields that will be filled out by the user and sent back to us. We will need to programattically access the fields.

#2 and #3 appear to be handled by your solution, but I’m concerned about #1. Do you handle floating fields?

Thank you.

Dear customer,

Thanks for considering Aspose.

You have clearly known the features of our product. But I am not very sure about your "floating fields" requirements. Does it mean to create fields in a template dynamiclly (because you have been able to dynamically fill fields )?

If so, we have implemented the features but not released this yet. In next version of this weekend, it should be released.

Wait for your reply.

Best regards.

Floating fields were introduced in Acrobat 7.x. They give the ability to do true mail merge into a document so that words will shift based upon the filled in values. In the example I gave, the values for first name, last name and balance would be filled into the sentence and the other words would shift appropriately so that the final output was the actual sentence. I would need the ability to fill in the floating fields from your component. The floating fields would be defined as part of the template in LiveCycle Designer. Sp what I would need from your end is the ability to fill those in programmatically. I’ve attached an example of a PDF file that contains floating fields.

Thanks for considering Aspose.

At present, Aspose.Pdf.Kit could not supported new features introduced in Acrobat 7.x including floating fields.

I saw that you have provided some support for 7.x. Any chance you are going to be able to support the floating fields? This is the only major barrier to my company being able to implement your solution.

Thanks.

Dear customer,

Thanks for considering Aspose.

Because some new features about form (from AcroForm to XFA Form) added in 7.x is absolutely different, we currently only support some simple functions such as filling simple fields.

About the floating field, I have analized carefully and found that it is mainly used to implement “merging of text, numeric values, run-time properties”, which is not directly supported in current version.

By the way, we can provide a substitute solution for you just like in the demo of AutoFiller class

http://www.aspose.com/Products/Aspose.Pdf.kit/Demos/Northwind.aspx. The code and sample pdf can be found in the demo of the installed directory.

Best regards.

From what I can see in that sample though, it does not handle the situation that I described in #1 in my original post. Please correct me if I am wrong, as that is what I need to accomplish.

I found a work around with other libraries in your solution, but it brings in 3 of your libraries, which will cost a significant amount to accomplish this one thing. What I've done in my work-around is used your Word product to perform the mail-merge, then used the pdf product to convert it to a pdf, then using the pdf kit to merge the pdf with another true form pdf to create the entire letter. The process works fine, but the cost becomes an issue at $5000.00 to do a work around for what I would have thought the pdf kit should have been able to do and only costs $1800.00.

I have a similar need. I would be interested in any solution at this point. Ideally using Pdf.Kit with floating fields would be the answer.

Hi, dear avanslaars,

Thanks for considering Aspose.Pdf.Kit.

This function does not been provided yet for the complete difference between AcroForm Field and XfaForm Field. And it will not be provided in a short time.

Sorry for the inconvenience bringing to you.

Best regards.