Fill a PDF form

PyPDFForm uses a single depth, non-nested dictionary to fill a PDF form. As a result of this process, the filled PDF form will be flattened and no longer editable. This is to prevent future encoding issues, especially when multiple PDF forms with overlaps on widget names are combined.

Fill text field and checkbox widgets

As seen when we inspected this PDF, a text field can be filled with a value of string, whereas a checkbox can be filled with a boolean value:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

filled = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf").fill(
    {
        "test": "test_1",
        "check": True,
        "test_2": "test_2",
        "check_2": False,
        "test_3": "test_3",
        "check_3": True,
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(filled.read())

Fill radio button widgets

A radio button group on a PDF form is a collection of radio buttons that share the same name.

A PDF form with radio button groups can be filled using integer values where the value indicates which radio button to select among each radio button group:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

filled = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_radio_button.pdf").fill(
    {
        "radio_1": 0,
        "radio_2": 1,
        "radio_3": 2,
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(filled.read())

Fill dropdown widgets

Similar to radio buttons, a dropdown choice can be selected by specifying an integer value of the choice. Consider this PDF:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

filled = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_dropdown.pdf").fill(
    {
        "dropdown_1": 1
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(filled.read())

Fill signature widgets

A signature field widget allows you to sign a PDF form in a handwritten format. PyPDFForm lets you use a signature image to populate any signature field widget.

Consider this PDF and this signature image:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

signed = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_signature.pdf").fill(
    {
        "signature": "sample_signature.png"
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(signed.read())

NOTE: As described here, the value of the signature in your dictionary can be a file path shown above, but also an open file object and a file stream that's in bytes.

By default, the library preserves the aspect ratio of the signature image when filling it. This can be turned off by setting the preserve_aspect_ratio property to False on the signature widget:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

pdf = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_signature.pdf")
pdf.widgets["signature"].preserve_aspect_ratio = False
pdf.fill(
    {
        "signature": "sample_signature.png"
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(pdf.read())

Fill image widgets

An image field widget can be filled similarly to a signature field, by providing a value of file path, file object, or file stream.

Consider this PDF and this image:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

filled = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_image_field.pdf").fill(
    {
        "image_1": "sample_image.jpg"
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(filled.read())

Unlike the signature field, the library does NOT preserve the aspect ratio of a regular image by default. It can be turned on by setting the preserve_aspect_ratio property to True on the image widget:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

pdf = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_image_field.pdf")
pdf.widgets["image_1"].preserve_aspect_ratio = True
pdf.fill(
    {
        "image_1": "sample_image.jpg"
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(pdf.read())

Disable rendering widgets

By default, PyPDFForm will still render each widget on the filled PDF form even though it's flattened during filling the process. This behavior can be disabled globally by passing the render_widgets parameter as False to the PdfWrapper object. Consider this PDF:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

filled = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf", render_widgets=False).fill(
    {
        "test": "test_1",
        "check": True,
        "test_2": "test_2",
        "check_2": False,
        "test_3": "test_3",
        "check_3": True,
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(filled.read())

Alternatively, if you just want to disable rendering of some widgets but not others, you can do so at each widget's level by setting the attribute render_widget to False:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

pdf = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

pdf.widgets["check"].render_widget = False
pdf.widgets["check_2"].render_widget = False

pdf.fill(
    {
        "test": "test_1",
        "check": True,
        "test_2": "test_2",
        "check_2": False,
        "test_3": "test_3",
        "check_3": True,
    },
)

with open("output.pdf", "wb+") as output:
    output.write(pdf.read())