Package com.snowtide.pdf.forms

Interface AcroForm

All Superinterfaces:

Form<AcroFormField>, Iterable<AcroFormField>

public interface AcroForm
extends Form<AcroFormField>

A Form implementation that represents the contents of an interactive PDF form, available via Document.getFormData(). All fields provided by a AcroForm implement the AcroFormField interface.

Note that field names are mapped to AcroFormField instances using each AcroFormField's fully-qualified name. This is to ensure that one and only one AcroFormField is mapped to a particular field name, as provided for by the PDF specification.

Text, checkbox, radio button group, and choice fields may be updated. After updating such fields, simply call writeUpdatedDocument(File) or writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream) to write out an updated copy of the source PDF document.

Version:

©2004-2025 Snowtide

Method Summary

Modifier and Type	Method	Description
AcroFormField	getField(String fullName)	Returns the AcroFormField that has the given field name, as provided by the AcroFormField.getFullName() function.
byte[]	getXFAContents()	Returns the entire XFA contents of this form.
byte[]	getXFAPacketContents(String packetName)	Returns the contents of the XML element referenced by packetName in this form.
Set	getXFAPacketNames()	Returns a Set of the packet names of the XFA data.
Iterator<AcroFormField>	iterator()	Returns an Iterator over the AcroFormFields held by this form.
boolean	writeUpdatedDocument(File dest)	Identical functionality to writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream), except the PDF document data is written to the path specified by the given File object.
boolean	writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream dest)	If any field values contained in this form have been changed, then this function writes a copy of the PDF document from which this form was read to the given OutputStream, and appends the updated form field values.
boolean	writeUpdatedDocument(String destinationPath)	Identical functionality to writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream), except the PDF document data is written to the path specified by the given String.

Methods inherited from interface com.snowtide.pdf.forms.Form

getDocument, getFieldNames

Methods inherited from interface java.lang.Iterable

forEach, spliterator

Method Detail

getField

AcroFormField getField(String fullName)

Returns the AcroFormField that has the given field name, as provided by the AcroFormField.getFullName() function.

Specified by:

getField in interface Form<AcroFormField>

iterator

Iterator<AcroFormField> iterator()

Returns an Iterator over the AcroFormFields held by this form.

Specified by:

iterator in interface Form<AcroFormField>

Specified by:

iterator in interface Iterable<AcroFormField>

writeUpdatedDocument

boolean writeUpdatedDocument(File dest)
                      throws IOException

Identical functionality to writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream), except the PDF document data is written to the path specified by the given File object.

Throws:

IOException

Since:

v2.1

See Also:

writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream)

writeUpdatedDocument

boolean writeUpdatedDocument(String destinationPath)
                      throws IOException

Identical functionality to writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream), except the PDF document data is written to the path specified by the given String.

Throws:

IOException

Since:

v3.0

See Also:

writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream)

writeUpdatedDocument

boolean writeUpdatedDocument(OutputStream dest)
                      throws IOException

If any field values contained in this form have been changed, then this function writes a copy of the PDF document from which this form was read to the given OutputStream, and appends the updated form field values. In this case, this function will always return true. If no field values have been changed, then this function will do nothing, and return false. This function will fail with an exception if the Document from which this form instance was retrieved has been closed.

Parameters:

dest - the OutputStream to which the updated PDF document data will be written

Returns:

true if any field values in this form have been changed, and updated PDF document data has been written to the given OutputStream; if no field values have been changed, then no data will be written, and false is returned

Throws:

IOException - if an error occurs while writing the PDF document data

Since:

v2.1

getXFAPacketNames

Set getXFAPacketNames()
               throws IOException

Returns a Set of the packet names of the XFA data. Each of the Strings in that set may be passed to getXFAPacketContents(String) to get the contents of that XML element.

Returns:

a Set of String objects, corresponding to the packet names of XFA data

Throws:

IOException - if an error occurs while reading the PDF document data

getXFAPacketContents

byte[] getXFAPacketContents(String packetName)
                     throws IOException

Returns the contents of the XML element referenced by packetName in this form. To get a list of individual packets available in this form, you may call getXFAPacketNames(). If packetName does not exist in this form, null is returned.

Parameters:

packetName - the name of the XML packet to be extracted from this form

Returns:

the XML contents of the given packet

Throws:

IOException - if an error occurs while reading the PDF document data

getXFAContents

byte[] getXFAContents()
               throws IOException

Returns the entire XFA contents of this form.

Returns:

the XFA contents of this form

Throws:

IOException - if an error occurs while reading the PDF document data