Question

Is there a way I can send data to my PDF file, (fill in the fields/blanks), either manually or by a third party component, the PDF files have certain fields that can be modified by user, entering numbers.. checkboxes etc etc

how can I achieve this goal, an if it will require some third party component, which is the best, and what are the prices?

our Development IDE is delphi 2010 / Delphi 2011 XE

thanks 🙂

Answer 1

I guess you want your application to create some PDF content from User Interface field.

You can do this easily from code, using a report generator from code, then a PDF engine.

We propose an Open Source solution just for doing this, from Delphi 6 up to XE.

Here is a code extract from one demo, which create a reports, using some User Interface fields as source (e.g. edt1.Text or mmo1.Text):

procedure TForm1.btn1Click(Sender: TObject);
  (...)
    with TGDIPages.Create(self) do
    try
      // the name of the report is taken from main Window's caption
      Caption := self.Caption;
      // now we add some content to the report
      BeginDoc;
      (...)
      // main content (automaticaly split on next pages)
      NewHalfLine;
      TextAlign := taJustified;
      s := 'This is some big text which must be justified on multiple lines. ';
      DrawText(s+s+s+s);
      NewLine;
      TextAlign := taLeft;
      DrawTitle(edt1.Text,true);
      for i := 1 to 10 do
        DrawText('This is some text '+IntToStr(i));
      NewLine;
      DrawBMP(Bmp,maxInt,50,'Some bitmap in the report');
      AddBookMark('bookmarkname');
      WordWrapLeftCols := true;
      AddColumns([10,20,50]);
      AddColumnHeaders(['#','Two','Three'],true,true);
      for i := 1 to 100 do
        DrawTextAcrossCols([IntToStr(i),'Column '+IntToStr(i),'Some text here. '+s]);
      NewLine;
      DrawBMP(Bmp,maxInt,50,'Some bitmap in the report (twice)');
      DrawTitle('This is your text',false,0,'','bookmarkname');
      DrawText(mmo1.Text);
      EndDoc;
      // set optional PDF export options
      // ExportPDFForceJPEGCompression := 80;
      // ExportPDFEmbeddedTTF := true;
      // ExportPDFUseUniscribe := true;
      // ExportPDFA1 := true;
      // show a preview form, and allow basic actions via the right click menu
      // ShowPreviewForm;
      // export as PDF
      ExportPDF('test.pdf',false);
    finally
      Free;
    end;

There are other solutions around, but this one is Open Source, and you can even draw whatever you want to the report (using a “standard” TCanvas property – you can even directly any graphical component using the PaintTo method), not only dedicated report generated methods like DrawTitle() or DrawText().

EDIT:

If your question was about creating PDF files with forms, this library won’t work.

You should use some closed-source libraries like VeryPdf or QuickPdf. Google is your friend.