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View Full Version : Forms... I give up



greenwom
February 7th, 2006, 04:00 AM
Ok, so I've been trying to find a good replacement for my work forms.

In the past we created multiple page pdf forms. The fields in the form could be taged to auto fill in all the pages (like name, ID number).

I would basicly draw or import the form's static text and then create the fields and tie them together.

So what do I do... I can create a PDF in Open Office but not a PDF form, I've read into all of the PDF software out there and haven't seen anything.

I'll post a sample PDF when I'm at work and maybe someone could point me into a new direction. If I can do this in a different format then I'm open to it.

:rolleyes:

zox
February 7th, 2006, 04:15 AM
I think Scribus is much better with PDF forms than OO.

greenwom
February 7th, 2006, 08:11 PM
Well I've messed around with scribus but I haven't had any good results. I'm not all that familiar with all of the capabilites. BEsides the documentation do you know of any tutorials on making forms..?

I still would love something like Adobe distiller, I was looking through the adobe site and noticed that they don't really make a home or education edition. I think they would have much higher sales (even in the Linux community) if they offered a cheaper version. The regular version is over 200 bucks and thats crazy. :twisted:

macgyver2
February 7th, 2006, 08:35 PM
I don't completely understand what you need. It sounds like you need to make forms, but I'm confused as to the reason why since you say you want the names, ids, and so on auto-filled.

Are you just using a form so that you can print a bunch of pages with differing info for each person? If that's the case, and you don't need the page to be fillable by anyone else after it's auto-generated, then I can point you to Reportlab (http://www.reportlab.org/). It's a python library that lets you script PDFs. Very cool...I'm using it for some projects, both at home and at work.

What's confusing me about your original post is the part about auto-filling the pages. Can you clarify?

greenwom
February 7th, 2006, 08:53 PM
Ya, I guess it's hard to explain...

All of the forms I'd like to post are to large for the forums. (2-3MB)

You enter the name on the first page and it fills in on each. It also has some other auto fill functions like if a person has X amount of this item then the form will caluclate the X amount needed on the next page.

I'm looking for an example that's small enough for the forum. (No web space to host it)....

:mrgreen:

macgyver2
February 7th, 2006, 09:06 PM
I understand now...Reportlab isn't going to help with that (but it's still worth a look if you like the idea of generating other PDFs on the fly :)).

greenwom
February 7th, 2006, 11:12 PM
I understand now...Reportlab isn't going to help with that (but it's still worth a look if you like the idea of generating other PDFs on the fly :)).

Do you have any idea of what I can use for this?