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Need server side script for data exchange with PDF forms data

Our electronic medical records system uses PDF forms to store most of its data locally within the forms. I have significant experience with javaScript enhancement of dynamic forms and would like to write the data contained within our PDF forms to a central database within our network by means of a submit function. Do we need at server side script to achieve this?


Jurgen B Jansen


2 Answers

Voted Best Answer

To process a PDF form on a server is very different from using JavaScript in the PDF file. You will need software that can extract form data from a PDF file. If you want to use Adobe software, you can create a solution based on the Adobe PDF Library (PDFL), which is licensed via DataLogics (http://www.datalogics.com). There are options for C/C++/VB/C#/Java (and probably a few more languages) available. You can also create a server side solution using non-Adobe PDF libraries or frameworks. If you want a powerful and free option, take a look at PDFBox (maintained by the Apache organization): https://pdfbox.apache.org

There is one other alternative: You can just send the data from a PDF form (vs. submitting the whole document) and then use the FDF or XFDF file format. Especially the XFDF format is very easy to parse (it's basically key value pairs in an XML file).

Karl Heinz Kremer
PDF Acrobatics Without a Net
PDF Software Development, Training and More...
http://www.khkonsulting.com


By Karl Heinz Kremer   

If the volume of records to process does not really justify a "full grown" server-based solution, as described in the message by Karl Heinz Kremer, you could set up something semi-automatic, using an Acrobat Action (open file, export/extract data), followed by a process feeding the data into the database.

On Mac, you could also control Acrobat and other software using AppleScript; on Windows, VBScript has comparable possibilities. Such a solution would have to be initiated manually, but could be more cost effective.

Hope this can help.

Max Wyss.


Max Wyss   

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