How to fill PDF form with specific font using pdfbox? - pdf

Question

I am trying to fill pdf form and I am able to fill it using the following approach through PDFBox library.
val pdf: PDDocument = PDDocument.load(file)
pdf.setAllSecurityToBeRemoved(true)
val docCatalog: PDDocumentCatalog = pdf.getDocumentCatalog
val acroForm: PDAcroForm = docCatalog.getAcroForm
def populateFields(inputJson: String, targetPdfPath: String): Unit = {
val valueMap: Array[Field] = gson.fromJson(inputJson, classOf[Array[Field]])
valueMap.foreach((field) => {
val pdField: PDField = acroForm.getField(field.name)
if (pdField != null) {
pdField.setValue(field.value)
} else {
println(s"No field with name ${field.name}")
}
})
pdf.save(targetPdfPath)
pdf.close()
}
The only problem is, I don't see any option to set the font before filling the pdf. Can you help me here?

Answer 1

You can achieve it by using these methods (note that you have to use PDFBox 1.8.15, not the newer 2.0).
// Set the field with custom font.
private void setField(String name, String value, String fontSource) throws IOException {
PDDocumentCatalog docCatalog;
PDAcroForm acroForm;
PDField field;
COSDictionary dict;
COSString defaultAppearance;
docCatalog = pdfTemplate.getDocumentCatalog();
acroForm = docCatalog.getAcroForm();
field = acroForm.getField(name);
dict = (field).getDictionary();
defaultAppearance = (COSString) dict.getDictionaryObject(COSName.DA);
if (defaultAppearance != null)
{
dict.setString(COSName.DA, "/" + fontName + " 10 Tf 0 g");
if (name.equalsIgnoreCase("Field1")) {
dict.setString(COSName.DA, "/" + fontName + " 12 Tf 0 g");
}
}
if (field instanceof PDTextbox)
{
field = new PDTextbox(acroForm, dict);
(field).setValue(value);
}
}
// Set the field with custom font.
private List<String> prepareFont(PDDocument _pdfDocument, List<PDFont> fonts) {
PDDocumentCatalog docCatalog = _pdfDocument.getDocumentCatalog();
PDAcroForm acroForm = docCatalog.getAcroForm();
PDResources res = acroForm.getDefaultResources();
if (res == null)
res = new PDResources();
List<String> fontNames = new ArrayList<>();
for (PDFont font: fonts)
{
fontNames.add(res.addFont(font));
}
acroForm.setDefaultResources(res);
return fontNames;
}
// Set the field with custom font.
private PDFont loadTrueTypeFont(PDDocument _pdfDocument, String resourceName) throws IOException
{
return PDTrueTypeFont.loadTTF(_pdfDocument, new File(resourceName));
}
Now, you only have to source the method setField with the name of the field, the value you want to insert and a string which is the path to the TTF font you wanna use.
Hope it helps!