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PDF Forms and PHP

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 7:48 am
by dickey
I have used the PHP library FPDF extensively for creating printable versions of docs, bills/invoices/statements etc.

Does anyone know of a library for PHP that allows the creation of PDF Forms and their associated fields etc.

I can produce PDF forms from within Acrobat, but would like to create them dynamically (with some personalisation) from within my PHP code.

Any assistance will be greatly appreciated.

- Andrew

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 10:48 am
by Burrito

Thanks

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 6:46 pm
by dickey
Thanks Burrito,

I was unaware (until your post) that PDFlib supported form fields.

It wasn't evident in the http://www.php.net documentation, but is evident in the PDFlib 6 docs which I apologise for not reviewing.

Not that I'm cheap, but are you aware of any free alternatives with similar fields/forms functionality.

Thanks again, Andrew

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 7:01 pm
by John Cartwright
14. How can I generate PDF files without using the non-free and commercial libraries ClibPDF and PDFLib? I'd like something that's free and doesn't require external PDF libraries.

There are a few alternatives written in PHP such as http://www.ros.co.nz/pdf/ , http://www.fpdf.org/ , http://www.gnuvox.com/pdf4php/ , and http://www.potentialtech.com/ppl.php . There is also the Panda module.
http://ca3.php.net/manual/en/faq.using. ... ng.freepdf scroll to #14

Thanks

Posted: Mon Jun 06, 2005 7:48 pm
by dickey
Thank you for your reply Jcart,

Yes, yes: I was aware of the post from 'Chapter 70: Using PHP'.

I have investigated each products/libararies listed and none to my knowledge supports the creation of form fields (button, check box, combo box, list box, radio button, signature, text) and their associated javascript behaviours natively for PHP other than PDFlib.

Until this time, I have extensively used fpdf (http://www.fpdf.org) library and found it to be great for general pdf document generation.

However, now that I need to generate pdf forms on the fly, I cannot find a free alternative to PDFlib.

Any further advice will be greatly appreciated.

- Andrew