pdf email attachment containing fieldnames

[DWC121]

I create newsletters for our non-profit. We print some of the newsletters and send them through the postal mail. About 40 newsletters are sent via e-mail as a pdf attachment. The front page of the pdf has a blank area where our Treasurer sticks on an address label and a stamp. The label include a date the member's membership will end.

Is it possible to add field names to the attached pdf so that each person who receives an e-mail will have only their information on the attached pdf file? We use a spreadsheet in OpenOffice to store the data (names, e-mail addresses, year, etc). Our e-mail client is Thunderbird.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi DWC121,

Thanks for the post, but I'm afraid that no file was attached. Please make sure that you wrap it in a *.zip or RAR/7zip archive before uploading.

Thanks,

[DWC121]

When I said "Is it possible to add field names to the attached pdf", I did not mean attached to this post. I meant attached to the e-mail we send to our members. If it will help, I have now attached the pdf to this post using the "attachments" tab.

The fields I would like to add (such as name and membership year from a spreadsheet) would appear in the top area on the last page. Each e-mail recipient should see only their name and year in their attached pdf.

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi DWC121,

Thanks for that - So just to be clear, you want to take the client data from e.g. a spreadsheet or CSV file, and auto-populate some form fields in a PDF with the appropriate client info. from that spreadsheet/CSV file?

If so, it is possible to export/import form data to/from a CSV file, but I'm not sure how you'd choose which client's data to populate automatically. I don't think it's possible to automate this in any way with our End User software, but I'll double check and let you know for sure.

Thanks,

[Will - Tracker Supp]

I've checked with my colleagues and there isn't really any way to automate this. You'll need to manually fill the fields with the client's data I'm afraid.

There isn't really any layer of automation that we could conceivably add in the future either.

Thanks,

[DWC121]

Will,

Thanks for the reply. I didn't think it could be done but I thought I'd ask anyway.

There are ways to populate fields within an e-mail (so each recipient gets a personalized e-mail), but getting my e-mail client to do that to an attachment would be harder. I didn't know if pdf's had a way of "signaling" my e-mail client "Wait before you send this e-mail. Pass the e-mail address to me so I can populate fields in the attachment".

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Not a problem at all!

What you're looking for is technically programmatically feasible and so someone could create an app that does this (I believe it should be possible with our SDK's), but whoever creates the app would either A) Need to know the exact format and layout of your spreadsheet and work with that, or B) Create an app that forces you to create a spreadsheet to a set of specifications that the app can then work with. You would then automate the process by creating e.g. 40 PDF's and populating the form fields based on the spreadsheet data, for each client one by one (and naming the PDF's accordingly, to minimize the potential for exposing client data to the wrong client).

This isn't something that we ourselves would do, as it would be quite a long and involved job that, for us as a company, would offer no real payout as you're the only user that has requested this. Even with more requests, it just might be beyond the scope of what our company is looking to offer.

You're more than welcome to download and trial our SDK if you have any programming knowledge:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/products/dev

If not, then as mentioned there's no solution we can offer, but best of luck!

Cheers,

[DWC121]

Thanks again Will - I might download the SDK when I get a few minutes. Like you and your company, I don't have much free time though.

I'm an Oracle (database) application programmer who designs input forms for our State Transportation Engineers. Have been doing it with various programs for close to 30 years all the way back to DOS 3.0 (IBM Filing Assistant). I know the pitfalls with coding. The 50+ forms I created over the years have had very few problems. The 60+ forms my Supervisor created have needed many many tweaks.

David

[Will - Tracker Supp]

Hi David,

Awesome! Just some extra info. on the SDK's to help you on your way:

CoreAPI
The CoreAPI can handle filling the forms without issue, but doesn't offer the Send By E-mail... functionality. So if that's not an issue then the CoreAPI is your cheapest and best bet:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/produc ... re-api-sdk

Editor SDK [NOT Editor Simple]
This can do both the form filling and the emailing, so if the email automation is also a requirement then the Editor SDK is the minimum you would need:
https://www.pdf-xchange.com/produc ... editor-sdk

All of our SDK documentation can be found here:
https://sdkhelp.pdf-xchange.com/view/Main_Page

It's also worth noting a few things:

• Getting the information from the spreadsheet would be a function done external to our libraries, as our SDK's deal solely with PDF and the conversion to/from.
• Our API is enormous and can, at times, be extremely complex. This is by necessity and the PDF format itself is extremely complex. This means that we're limited in the help that we can and will provide developers: developers are expected to have a good working knowledge of the relevant programming language (as you have intimated you do), but also are expected to have a good understanding of the PDF format, or a willingness to learn it. We obviously cannot spend time helping to teach the format itself, as that's beyond the scope of our support (the same would be true of e.g. Adobe and their SDK's).
• PLEASE do try the SDK and get a fully functional application that is ready to use and deploy, before buying a license. 100% of the features are available to use, they will just watermark any documents that are created or modified (use trial documents for this reason).
• Lastly, if you do have questions about licensing, then it's best to email sales@pdf-xchange.com directly instead of posting here, and please ensure that any questions about the SDK, API, your code, etc. are posted to the correct forums. So if you don't quite understand how to work with a particular interface, for example, don't respond to this topic as we (the end user support guys) can't help you, create a new topic in the appropriate forum.

Good luck and let us know if you have any issues/questions!

Cheers,