CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phppdffpdfacrobatpdf-form
user1911141
user1911141

Reputation: 137

FPDF-Merge Error: field not found in pdf template using fpdm.php to fill form data

I'm using this FPDF script from http://www.fpdf.org/en/script/script93.php to fill html form data to pdf fields in a template. This:

require('fpdm/fpdm.php');

$fields = array(
    'name'  => $_POST['_fid_6'],
    'address'  => $_POST['_fid_7'],
    'city'  => $_POST['_fid_8'],
);

$pdf = new FPDM('template.pdf');
$pdf->Load($fields, false); // second parameter: false if field values are in ISO-8859-1, true if UTF-8
$pdf->Merge();
$pdf->Output('qaf.pdf', 'F');

works fine when I use the example template.pdf provided in the zip. But when I use my own pdf template (template3.pdf), and this:

require('fpdm/fpdm.php');

$fields = array(
    'cascade'  => $_POST['_fid_6'],
    'structuretype'  => $_POST['_fid_7'],
    'marketmanager'  => $_POST['_fid_8'],
);

$pdf = new FPDM('template3.pdf');
$pdf->Load($fields, false); // second parameter: false if field values are in ISO-8859-1, true if UTF-8
$pdf->Merge();
$pdf->Output('qaf.pdf', 'F');

I get the error FPDF-Merge Error: field cascade not found

I'm using Acrobat XI Pro. I've triple checked the field names in my pdf template & html form. I've optimized the pdf to remove compression and fast web view, and made it compatible with Acrobat 5.0 and later. My template is 7 pages, but I tried it as only 1 page with the same result. I've experimented with discarding other data and objects, but still get the same error.

There must be something in my pdf template that is different than the template.pdf in the example, and is causing the error. But I have no idea what it could be. I can't include my actual template pdf here, because it is proprietary.

Any ideas on what might be causing the error?? Thanks!

Upvotes: 1

Views: 13656

Answers (4)

6opko
6opko

Reputation: 1760

I got this error when I had multiple fields with the same name in pdf. Although they're shown in Adobe Reader as BuyerEmail, on the right in the Fields list they were referenced as BuyerEmail#0, BuyerEmail#1, etc. but I couldn't reference them in FPDF even by adding #0, #1, etc. The solution was to rename the field(s) in the document, and then again to run it through pdftk. Then it did work.

Upvotes: 2

Isha
Isha

Reputation: 431

In order to make your pdf to work for this code your pdf must have the fields you have specified in $fields array. So to do that I have a simple solution.

  1. Open LibreOffice Writer and create a form using form controls.
  2. Double click on the field(a window with all properties will open) and give name to the field.
  3. Use this name as the key in $field array to set value and display that value in pdf document.
  4. Once you have designed your form and done with naming all the form controls.
  5. Use the export to pdf function of LibreOffice and use this exported pdf for your code to view the editable pdf.

Upvotes: -1

Mahi
Mahi

Reputation: 31

for this you must compress your pdf
then run for compressing your fdf you need to install pdfftk
then set environment and compress with pdftk with the following command line process

C:\Users\Deepak\Desktop>pdftk template_3.pdf output template3_o.pdf

then use 

template3_o.pdf

instead of 

template_3.pdf

Upvotes: 3

minhnguyen
minhnguyen

Reputation: 91

You should convert your template using PDFtk (http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/) into a compatible version with the script!

Upvotes: 1

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