Selectively hide or show certain PDF content over email - pdf

I recently received a PDF file from my bank that had many details along with my account number. I wanted to share the PDF with one of my relatives, I immediately forwarded the PDF to him. To my surprise he was not able to see my account number in the PDF, that I was able to see.
Immediately I opened my sent items folder and tried to open the PDF from the sent mail. And to my surprise I was not able to the see the account number there also.
The account number text was visible only when I opened PDF attachment from the original mail. This has gotten me all curious.
Does someone know anything about a mechanism on how to achieve this? How can I do this using itextsharp or a similar library.
Thanks
Amar

Related

Fillable PDF form with button to upload completed PDF to web server

I'm trying to find a way to host some fillable PDF forms on our website that people can download, fill out, and then they have a SUBMIT button on it that would 1) upload the completed form to a folder on our web server as a PDF file, and then ideally 2) email a direct link to the file on the server. I know how to add the button, just not clear on the actions side for this scenario.
Adobe docs have some info here, https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/publishing-interactive-pdf-web-forms.html, but nothing specific to what I need.
Does anyone have any experience with this? And if it's even a realistic goal given the number of different PDF readers, browser-based viewers, etc and how it would be supported by all?
Thanks in advance

Can you embed a separate pdf into Indesign and open it after exporting to PDF?

I would like to ask the following if possible. We have a client that wants a separate pdf document, embedded in a main pdf document and opens when you click it. Like the function in MS Word where you can attach another Word document inside a Word document (Word-ception, lol) and you can still open it.
I've tried it in Acrobat Pro with the Attachment and Link tools. Another option was to put the link document in an ftp server for accessibility. but our client really wants this functionality. Is this possible in Indesign?
Thank you!
Using Word as your example vehicle there are several ways to link 2 documents.
One is an appendix to the other, in PDF terms is a merge or binding but its one flowing document with separate sequential sections/chapters.
Another way is to link to an external file, in PDF terms a hyperlink to a relative second file, which can be locally folder relative or a web absolute reference. You have tried that.
In Word we can add objects internally with icons, in PDF that can be an annotation comment attachment to save externally and action accordingly. You also seem to discount that approach.
Finally PDF offers an Adobe Specific Structure where multiple PDFs attachments can be imbedded in an overall PDF wrapper. These are called Portfolios and not! to be confused with their portfolio service
They are unpopular since in a browser without Adobe Reader they should only offer the cover page.
Whilst in securer offline readers the files may well be shown as attachments that you need to save or independently open to view them.
Only some non Acrobat viewers may view them as a collection. And in the past that required runing insecure SWFlash, But I understand that has changed ?
Here is how the 3 internal PDF files seen above were shown in older Acrobat 9.
Possibly the best experience is using Foxit Reader

PDF/A document with data is downloading incorrectly on Windows/Chrome. Have to open in Apache Acrobat Pro and save to fix

I am not sure how to phrase this question. We have code that creates a PDF that is PDF/A compliant, we put in some xml data into the metadata section. We then display the PDF in a preview window where the user can download the PDF. As part of our users process they open up the PDF in a text editor and search for one of the xml tag, "vendor" while all the data is encrypted, the tag value of "vendor" is still visible, such that the search would work. And then the users submit these files to US Courts that export the data.
I am on a Mac and I follow this process and it works perfectly.
The issue we have is that on Chrome/Windows users when they download the PDF and try to search for "vendor" it doesn't work. The search fails. If the user opens up the document in Adobe Acrobat Pro and then just hit Save, then open it in their Text editor it then works. The problem is our users are now complaining about having to do those two extra steps.
This only occurs on Windows users with Chrome. It does not happen on Mac/Safari.
I wish I could attach a sample, but the documents are extremely confidential, and I can't make one up with non confidential data as that would then not match what happens in our application.

Is it possible to create fillable PDF from excel?

Currently, I have an excel file that upon launch it shows a userform where users can fill out a few text boxes/comboboxes and press create. Upon pressing create, it gathers stored data and creates a PDF that we send to vendors. It's essentially an invoice. The vendors that receive this PDF have to fill out a couple of lines and return it to us. Right now if they have no acrobat/reader experience, they're printing the PDF and then scanning and returning to us.
I want the vendors to be able to type in a few areas on the PDF and return it to us. My question is, can I create a fillable PDF from excel? Does anyone know how to do this using excel features or with VBA? Or any other method?
Thanks!
Brandon
Short Answer: Absolutely.
First you will start with a fillable pdf form. (you can create one using Adobe Acrobat or the older Adobe Designer)
It is my understanding, from your question that you would like to take some information, fill out a PDF, then send this to your client, to complete this.
Using VBA you can do all of this in one single button.
I created a step-by-step video on how to use the SendKeys method to achieve this.
Please see the detailed instructional YouTube video here: How to AUTOMATICALLY fill PDF forms using Microsoft Excel in 1 CLICK

Saving the modified contents of a pdf

I've got a form that I downloaded, I'd like to prefill some content on the form (this is easy using cfpdfform).
Where it gets tricky is I would like to allow the user to modify the contents of that form, and then somehow have those modified contents accessible to me. I didnt build the source PDF so I dont know how to allow the user to "save" the new contents so they can be read.
Any ideas on where I might start on this one?
You can also use the cfpdfform tag to read/write data to a PDF file which has a form. The important thing is that the PDF document already have the form fields available, or that you add them.
I just recently completed a task where I had to have a user fill out a normal web form, and then create a filled version of an existing PDF document. It worked like a breeze!
I think that depending on what you are trying to accomplish, having the user fill out the data in a web form is less confusing than serving up a PDF and expecting them to save that to update a file on a remote server. Just my opinion, though.
http://www.cfquickdocs.com/cf8/?getDoc=cfpdfform#cfpdfform
It's possible for users to complete most PDF forms in Adobe Reader, but when user's try to save the changes they get a popup prompting them that the PDF cannot be saved and would need to upgrade to Adobe Acrobat to have this functionality.
Since Acrobat 7 (or possibly) 8 it's possible to create a form so that it can be completed and saved in reader. In Acrobat open your PDF, and select Advanced -> Enable usage right in reader from the menu. This will prompt you to save the form and then anyone using Adobe reader can complete it.
Once that's done you can open the form in ColdFusion, populate some of the fields and serve it up to the user. Once they fill it in, save it and get it back in ColdFusion you can read the contents using the PDF related tags.
Please note: It's currently not possible to set the "enable usage rights in reader" flag from ColdFusion, you need a copy of Adobe Acrobat or access to Adobe LifeCycle server to do this.
This document may help you:
http://www.adobe.com/education/instruction/teach/coldfusion/CF8-2_advanced_cf8_development_unit8.pdf