iTextSharp Form Field Not Displaying ampersands, &, with SetField - pdf

Question

I'm having an issue with iTextSharp and a PDF form (form fields specifically) that I've spend nearly two days on that I am direly hoping someone has the answer to.
I have a PDF form that when I open it as a user I can enter ampersands, &, into form fields just fine. However, when I use iTextSharp to fill in a form field value using .SetField the ampersands disappear. I have tried using & (which actually causes all the text in the field to appear as blank), the unicode representation of &, not flattening the form, flattening the form, etc. all to no avail. I am not sure what the issue could be as I mentioned the form field can certainly accept commas and ampersands with it's default encoding.
Is there something i'm missing?
Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
'Using iText 4.1.2.0
GeneratePDF2()
End Sub
Private Sub GeneratePDF2()
''//The directory to output files to
Dim WorkingFolder = My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.Desktop
Dim FormFileName = Path.Combine(WorkingFolder, "testfile.pdf")
Dim FinalFileName = Path.Combine(WorkingFolder, "Final.pdf")
''//The name of the form field that we are going to create
Dim TextFieldName = "form1[0].#subform[0].Table3[0].Row2[0].Line2_FullName_and_AddressofEmployer[0]"
Dim FieldValue As String = "Jonathan & Chris & Mark" ' Does Not Work
'Dim FieldValue As String = "Jonathan and Chris and Mark" ' Works
Dim Letter As RandomAccessFileOrArray
'Create a PDF reader object based on the PDF template
Dim PDFReader As PdfReader
'Dim BAOS1 As MemoryStream
Dim Stamper As PdfStamper
Dim BAOS As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
Dim Copy As PdfCopyFields = New PdfCopyFields(BAOS)
Dim FormFilePath As String = FormFileName
Letter = New RandomAccessFileOrArray(FormFilePath)
'Create a PDF reader object based on the PDF template
PDFReader = New PdfReader(Letter, Nothing)
Dim BAOS1 As MemoryStream = New MemoryStream()
Stamper = New PdfStamper(PDFReader, BAOS1)
Dim FormFields As AcroFields = Stamper.AcroFields
'Set field value
FormFields.SetField(TextFieldName, FieldValue)
'Rename field after setting value
Dim RenamedFormFieldName As String
RenamedFormFieldName = String.Concat(Guid.NewGuid().ToString, "_", Guid.NewGuid().ToString)
FormFields.RenameField(TextFieldName, RenamedFormFieldName)
' flatten the form to remove editting options, set it to false
' to leave the form open to subsequent manual edits
Stamper.FormFlattening = True
' close the pdf
Stamper.Close()
'This could be the correct location
Copy.AddDocument(New PdfReader(BAOS1.ToArray))
Copy.Writer.CloseStream = False
Copy.Close()
PDFReader = New PdfReader(BAOS.ToArray())
Stamper = New PdfStamper(PDFReader, New FileStream(FinalFileName, FileMode.Create))
Stamper.FormFlattening = True
Stamper.Close()
End Sub

Answer 1

I'm unable to reproduce your problem, I'm using version 5.1.1.0. Below is sample code that creates a PDF, adds a field to it and then sets the field's value to This & that. (Its in three steps because I don't know how to add a field during the initial PDF creation.) I also tried manually creating a PDF in Acrobat and I was able to set the field to an ampersand just fine, too. Are you creating the form field in iTextSharp or another program? Can you post that PDF somewhere so we can look at it?
Option Explicit On
Option Strict On
Imports iTextSharp.text
Imports iTextSharp.text.pdf
Imports System.IO
Public Class Form1
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
''//The directory to output files to
Dim WorkingFolder = My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.Desktop
''//This sample code creates a base PDF, then adds a text field to it and finally sets the field value.
''//These filenames represent those three actions
Dim BaseFileName = Path.Combine(WorkingFolder, "Base.pdf")
Dim FormFileName = Path.Combine(WorkingFolder, "Form.pdf")
Dim FinalFileName = Path.Combine(WorkingFolder, "Final.pdf")
''//The name of the form field that we are going to create
Dim TextFieldName = "Text1"
''//Create our base PDF
Using FS As New FileStream(BaseFileName, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Read)
Using Doc As New Document(PageSize.LETTER)
Using W = PdfWriter.GetInstance(Doc, FS)
Doc.Open()
Doc.NewPage()
Doc.Add(New Paragraph("This is my form"))
Doc.Close()
End Using
End Using
End Using
''//Add our form field
Using FS As New FileStream(FormFileName, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Read)
Dim R1 = New PdfReader(BaseFileName)
Using S As New PdfStamper(R1, FS)
Dim F As New TextField(S.Writer, New Rectangle(50, 50, 500, 100), TextFieldName)
S.AddAnnotation(F.GetTextField(), 1)
S.Close()
End Using
End Using
''//Set the field value to text with an ampersand
Using FS As New FileStream(FinalFileName, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Read)
Dim R2 = New PdfReader(FormFileName)
Using S As New PdfStamper(R2, FS)
S.AcroFields.SetField(TextFieldName, "This & that")
S.Close()
End Using
End Using
Me.Close()
End Sub
End Class
EDIT
I just tried it with the PDF you sent and its working just fine for me. Below is the full code that I ran. Here's the PDF it made. Are you sure you're not doing something else to the PDF (I don't know what.) If you create a brand new Windows Applications and use the below code against 5.1.1.0 does it work for you?
Option Explicit On
Option Strict On
Imports iTextSharp.text
Imports iTextSharp.text.pdf
Imports System.IO
Imports System.Text
Public Class Form1
Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load
''//The directory to output files to
Dim WorkingFolder = My.Computer.FileSystem.SpecialDirectories.Desktop
Dim FormFileName = Path.Combine(WorkingFolder, "testfile.pdf")
Dim FinalFileName = Path.Combine(WorkingFolder, "Final.pdf")
''//The name of the form field that we are going to create
Dim TextFieldName = "form1[0].#subform[0].Table3[0].Row2[0].Line2_FullName_and_AddressofEmployer[0]"
''//Set the field value to text with an ampersand
Using FS As New FileStream(FinalFileName, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.Read)
Dim R2 = New PdfReader(FormFileName)
Using S As New PdfStamper(R2, FS)
S.AcroFields.SetField(TextFieldName, "Chris & Mark")
S.FormFlattening = True
S.Close()
End Using
End Using
Me.Close()
End Sub
End Class

Answer 2

Had a similar case where German umlauts entered by the user in the application were not showing in the PDF. Turned out to be a font issue.
Had to ship our own fonts with the application (Liberation package to get cross-platform Arial-style) and doing this (it's Java):
BaseFont baseFont = BaseFont.createFont(FONT_FILE, BaseFont.CP1252, BaseFont.NOT_EMBEDDED);
acroFields.setFieldProperty(fieldName, "textfont", baseFont, null);