Hello, I'm trying to add an editable field in a PDF document.
Something like a form that can be filled via Adobe Acrobat.
Reading the documentation I figured I should use
PDFAnnotationTextWidget:
"A PDFAnnotationTextWidget object allows you to manage the appearance
and content of text fields, supporting interactive forms in a PDF
document. This object is comparable to an editable NSTextField in Cocoa
or an edit text view in Carbon."
However the resulting PDF is not editable. PDFAnnotationTextWidget
does not seem to have any difference with PDFAnnotationFreeText which
is not advertised as editable.
Is there something else I should know to make the annotation editable?
I can't find any related documentation.
Thank you
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Feb 6, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Chris Boone wrote:
Hello, I'm trying to add an editable field in a PDF document.
Something like a form that can be filled via Adobe Acrobat.
:
However the resulting PDF is not editable. PDFAnnotationTextWidget
does not seem to have any difference with PDFAnnotationFreeText which
is not advertised as editable.

Tiger or Leopard? In Tiger annotations were basically read-only (they
display but are basically "burned in" when the PDF is written out).
In Leopard they are "real" annotations.

For Tiger I recommend sticking with the simpler graphical annotations
(like FreeText, Square, etc.) since they are not interactive.

john calhoun

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John Calhoun wrote:

Feb 6, 2007, at 2:09 PM, Chris Boone wrote:
>Hello, I'm trying to add an editable field in a PDF document.
>Something like a form that can be filled via Adobe Acrobat.
>:
>However the resulting PDF is not editable. PDFAnnotationTextWidget
>does not seem to have any difference with PDFAnnotationFreeText which
>is not advertised as editable.

Tiger or Leopard? In Tiger annotations were basically read-only (they
display but are basically "burned in" when the PDF is written out). In
Leopard they are "real" annotations.

I was asking for Tiger. So I take that it is a documentation bug?

For Tiger I recommend sticking with the simpler graphical annotations
(like FreeText, Square, etc.) since they are not interactive.

If I use PDFAnnotationTextWidget now, will my application automagically
start producing editable fields when run on Leopard?

*john calhoun*

Thanks for your answer

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Feb 6, 2007, at 10:41 PM, Chris Boone wrote:
I was asking for Tiger. So I take that it is a documentation bug?

While "live" most of the annotations work (with the exception I think
of a few of the widgets). It is when you save (something you probably
want to do) that they are "flattened" (with the exception of the Link).

If I use PDFAnnotationTextWidget now, will my application
automagically
start producing editable fields when run on Leopard?

Maybe; there was quite a rewrite of the annotation code though so I
won't stick my neck out and say, "yes". But when I think about it
now, I think that there are a few crucial pieces missing in Tiger
regarding Widget annotations. Specifically, I think Tiger lacked the
ability to specify the Field Name. Many form (Widget) annotations are
pretty useless without a Field Name. In Tiger I think it read the
Field Name from an existing PDF but it was not user settable for
annotations you create yourself.

Generally, it is true that the emphasis in Tiger was on PDF display
and less on editing (there is some functionality for adding pages,
creating new pages, re-ordering pages, etc. and Links of course).
This was primarily a limit due to resources (that is, not enough
engineering time). Leopard provided more time and so the other half
was better implemented (the "setting" as opposed to the "getting").

I suggest you seriously try a small app on Leopard because this is an
area that gets unfortunately little testing. If you find bugs and
pass them along in a timely manner, we'll be able to fix these before
Leopard ships. And to my mind the ability to create Widgets is a
fascinating capability in Leopard. I would like to know it works
fully for developers.

At the very least, there is the PDF Annotation Editor sample that
tests a good deal of this code. It still requires someone to sit down
and play with it though create annotations, save them, see how they
behave in Preview/Adobe Reader. I'll do some of this myself when I
get a chance. :-)

john calhoun

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John Calhoun wrote:
Feb 6, 2007, at 10:41 PM, Chris Boone wrote:
>I was asking for Tiger. So I take that it is a documentation bug?

While "live" most of the annotations work (with the exception I think of
a few of the widgets). It is when you save (something you probably want
to do) that they are "flattened" (with the exception of the Link).

>If I use PDFAnnotationTextWidget now, will my application automagically
>start producing editable fields when run on Leopard?

Maybe; there was quite a rewrite of the annotation code though so I
won't stick my neck out and say, "yes". But when I think about it now,
I think that there are a few crucial pieces missing in Tiger regarding
Widget annotations. Specifically, I think Tiger lacked the ability to
specify the Field Name. Many form (Widget) annotations are pretty
useless without a Field Name. In Tiger I think it *read* the Field Name
from an existing PDF but it was not user *settable* for annotations you
create yourself.

Generally, it is true that the emphasis in Tiger was on PDF *display*
and less on editing (there is some functionality for adding pages,
creating new pages, re-ordering pages, etc. and Links of course).
This was primarily a limit due to resources (that is, not enough
engineering time). Leopard provided more time and so the other half was
better implemented (the "setting" as opposed to the "getting").

I suggest you seriously try a small app on Leopard because this is an
area that gets unfortunately little testing. If you find bugs and pass
them along in a timely manner, we'll be able to fix these before Leopard
ships. And to my mind the ability to create Widgets is a fascinating
capability in Leopard. I would like to know it works fully for developers.

At the very least, there is the PDF Annotation Editor sample that tests
a good deal of this code. It still requires someone to sit down and
play with it though create annotations, save them, see how they behave
in Preview/Adobe Reader. I'll do some of this myself when I get a
chance. :-)

Interesting, thank you for the clarification. I wonder how this issue hadn't
come up before. I was googling for PDFAnnotationTextWidget and I was getting
just 11 results, all linking to the PDFKit documentation!

Anyway, I don't have access to Leopard so I will just have to wait :)

*john calhoun*

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