Question

Following this SO solution here to notify clients of a click event in a PDF document, how is it possible to notify the client when the PDF gets submitted by the client using this.myPDF.submitForm(“localhost/Handler.ashx?r=2) function?

The PDF File is created inside a user control then rendered into a HTML object:

string container = ("<object data='/myfile.pdf' type='application/pdf'></object>");

The JS file attached to the PDF is done like this:

 var webClient = new WebClient();
 string htmlContent = webClient.DownloadString(fileurl + "pdf_script.js");
 PdfAction action = PdfAction.JavaScript(htmlContnent, pdfstamper.Writer);
 pdfstamper.Writer.SetOpenAction(action);

And the content of the js file:

this.disclosed = true;
if (this.external && this.hostContainer) {

function onMessageFunc(stringArray) {
     try {
          this.myPDF.submitForm("http://localhost/Handler.ashx?EmpNo=12345" + "#FDF", false);

        }
        catch (e) {

        }
    }
    function onErrorFunc(e) {
        console.show();
        console.println(e.toString());
    }
    try {
        if (!this.hostContainer.messageHandler);
        this.hostContainer.messageHandler = new Object();
        this.hostContainer.messageHandler.myPDF = this;
        this.hostContainer.messageHandler.onMessage = onMessageFunc;
        this.hostContainer.messageHandler.onError = onErrorFunc;
        this.hostContainer.messageHandler.onDisclose = function () { return true; };
    }
    catch (e) {
        onErrorFunc(e);
    }
}

When the submitForm call is made the PDF contents (form fields) get saved successfully and an alert is displayed in the PDF by doing this:

message = "%FDF-1.2
                   1 0 obj
                   <<
                   /FDF
                   <<
                      /Status("Success!")
                   >>
                   >>
                   endobj
                   trailer
                   <</Root 1 0 R>>
           %%EOF");
return message;

What I’m trying to do is to get the PDF to callback the client after the form submit call sent from this client, a way to acknowledge the client that the form has been submitted, not in a form of an alert, but rather, a way to trigger a function in the host (the container, an iframe, object…etc).

Answer 1

The FDF response you used was unknown to me, so I’ve learned something new from your question. I’ve studied the AcroJS Reference and the FDF specification in the PDF Reference, and now I have a better understanding of what your code does. Thank you for that.

I assume that you already know how to trigger a JavaScript message in an HTML file using a JavaScript call from a PDF. See the createMessageHandler() in the JavaScript Communication between HTML and PDF article.

I interpret your question as: “How to I invoke this method after a successful submission of the data?”

If there’s a solution to this question, it will involve JavaScript. I see that one can add JavaScript in an FDF file, but I’m not sure if that JavaScript can ‘talk to’ HTML. I’m not sure if you can call a JavaScript function in your initial PDF from the FDF response. If it’s possible, you should add a JavaScript entry to your PDF similar to the /Status entry.

The value of this entry is a dictionary, something like:

<<
/Before (app.alert\("before!"\))
/After (app.alert\("after"\))
/Doc [/MyDocScript1, (myFunc1\(\)),
      /MyDocScript2, (myFunc2\(\))
>>

In your case, I would remove the /Before and /Doc keys. I don’t think you need them, I’d reduce the dictionary to:

<<
/After (talkToHtml\(\))
>>

Where talkToHtml() is a method already present in the PDF:

function talkToHtml() {
    var names = new Array();
    names[0] = "Success!";
    try{
        this.hostContainer.postMessage(names);
    }
    catch(e){
        app.alert(e.message);
    }
}

I don’t know if this will work. I’ve never tried it myself. I’m basing my answer on the specs.

I don’t know if you really need to use FDF. Have you tried adding JavaScript to your submitForm() method? Something like:

this.myPDF.submitForm({
    cURL: "http://localhost/Handler.ashx?EmpNo=12345",
    cSubmitAs: "FDF",
    oJavaScript: {
        Before: 'app.alert("before!")',
        After: 'app.alert("after")',
        Doc: ["MyDocScript1", "myFunc1()",
              "MyDocScript2", "myFunc2()" ]
    }
});

This will only work if you submit as FDF. I don’t think there’s a solution if you submit an HTML query string.

In case you’re wondering what MyDocScript1 and MyDocScript2 are:

Doc defines an array defining additional JavaScript scripts to be
added to those defined in the JavaScript entry of the document’s name
dictionary. The array contains an even number of elements, organized
in pairs. The first element of each pair is a name and the second
is a text string or text stream defining the script corresponding
to that name. Each of the defined scripts is added to those already
defined in the name dictionary and then executed before the script
defined in the Before entry is executed. (ISO-32000-1 Table 245)

I’m not sure if all of this will work in practice. Please let me know either way.