Processing PDF Forms

There is now support in Premvet for processing PDF forms. It's basic in the sense it's been tried with 'text forms' and Radio buttons in some PDF documents.

1. Watch the Video:

   Either of these should link to the appropriate guides:

   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3wf5RtVZeM
   http://www.youtube.com/user/formrouter

2. Create the form as per Step 1

3. Use the Names you allocated to the forms (See Video 4/14) to create a Premvet definition file.
   The .def file is similar to the normal.def files with two exceptions:
   • The 1st line is .PDF followed by the PDF Template name
     
   • 2nd (and following) lines are

          PDF Field Name <space> Premvet reserved word
          PDF Field Name <space> Premvet reserved word
   

   e.g. this three line .def file will add form data to the pdf - vla5.pdf - it will fill in two fields:
   txtClient with the Client name and
   txtVet with the Practice Name.

       .PDF vla5.pdf
       txtClient &client
       txtVet  &pname
   

Try it, feedback welcome for other options that may be required. If you do have other examples it will save a lot of time if you can supply the .pdf template and the exported form data (usually a .fdf file). We can then emulate what the .fdf file has in it by adding an appropriate .file command.

The PDF forms should work as per other Windows documents except with it being a form it will be displayed allowing you to edit it further. PDF forms will require a copy of Acrobat (version 8 or higher) - so does assume a GUI.

Existing PDF document processing is not affected by these changes, PDF forms are a separate option.

New Options:

For radio buttons and Check Boxes, that is the field is NOT a text box then the 2nd field should start with a / - This will be preserved and processed correctly.

You can use .if and .el to handle the Salutation/Sex Radio boxes (see hillqcpdf.def for examples)