Change form field styles

PyPDFForm enables you to modify some field styles through code, allowing you to change field appearances without altering the PDF form template.

This section of the documentation will primarily use this PDF as an example.

Change text field font

Before changing a text field's font, you must first register the desired font.

After registration, you can apply the registered font to any text field:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper, Text

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

# change globally by iterating each text field
for field in form.widgets.values():
    if isinstance(field, Text):
        field.font = "your_registered_font"

# or change at each field's widget level
form.widgets["test"].font = "your_registered_font"

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

form.write("output.pdf")

Change text field font size

You can change the font size using a float value in PyPDFForm:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper, Text

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

# change globally by iterating each text field
for field in form.widgets.values():
    if isinstance(field, Text):
        field.font_size = 20

# or change at each field's widget level
form.widgets["test"].font_size = 30.5

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

form.write("output.pdf")

Change text field font color

You can change the font color using an RGB tuple:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper, Text

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

# change globally by iterating each text field
for field in form.widgets.values():
    if isinstance(field, Text):
        field.font_color = (1, 0, 0)

# or change at each field's widget level
form.widgets["test"].font_color = (0.2, 0, 0.5)

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

form.write("output.pdf")

Change text field alignment

You can change the alignment of the text filled into a text field by setting its alignment property to an integer value: 0 for left, 1 for center, and 2 for right.

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper, Text

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

# change globally by iterating each text field
for field in form.widgets.values():
    if isinstance(field, Text):
        field.alignment = 1 # center

# or change at each field's widget level
form.widgets["test"].alignment = 2  # right

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

form.write("output.pdf")

Change text field max length

You can change the maximum number of characters allowed in a text field:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper, Text

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

# change globally by iterating each text field
for field in form.widgets.values():
    if isinstance(field, Text):
        field.max_length = 4

# or change at each field's widget level
form.widgets["test"].max_length = 2

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

form.write("output.pdf")

Enable text field character spacing (combs)

To enable character spacing in a text field, set its .comb property to True. This will evenly space out the characters of the text filled into the field. Note that this property only takes effect when the text field also has a max_length set.

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper, Text

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

# change globally by iterating each text field
for field in form.widgets.values():
    if isinstance(field, Text):
        field.max_length = 4
        field.comb = True

# or change at each field's widget level
form.widgets["test"].max_length = 2
form.widgets["test"].comb = True

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

form.write("output.pdf")

Enable multiline text field

To enable multiline input for a text field, set its .multiline property to True. This effectively transforms it into a paragraph field:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

form.widgets["test"].multiline = True

form.fill(
    {
        "test": "test_1\ntest_1",
        "check": True,
        "test_2": "test_2\ntest_2",
        "check_2": False,
        "test_3": "test_3\ntest_3",
        "check_3": True,
    },
)

form.write("output.pdf")

Change checkbox/radio button size

You can change the size of a checkbox or a group of radio buttons using a float value:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template.pdf")

form.widgets["check"].size = 50
form.widgets["check_2"].size = 40
form.widgets["check_3"].size = 60

form.fill(
    {
        "check": True,
        "check_2": True,
        "check_3": True,
    },
)

form.write("output.pdf")

To modify the options available in a dropdown field, assign a new list of strings to the .choices attribute of the corresponding field. For instance, the following code snippet updates the dropdown_1 field in this PDF form with a new set of choices:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_dropdown.pdf")

form.widgets["dropdown_1"].choices = ["", "apple", "banana", "cherry", "dates"]

form.write("output.pdf")

If you want different export values from the displayed options, you can specify a list of tuples for the .choices attribute, where the first value of each tuple is the displayed option and the second value is the export value:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_dropdown.pdf")

form.widgets["dropdown_1"].choices = [
    ("", "blank_export_value"),
    ("apple", "apple_export_value"),
    ("banana", "banana_export_value"),
    ("cherry", "cherry_export_value"),
    ("dates", "dates_export_value"),
]

form.write("output.pdf")

Before changing a dropdown field's font, you must first register the desired font.

After registration, you can apply the registered font to any dropdown field:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_dropdown.pdf")

form.widgets["dropdown_1"].font = "your_registered_font"

form.write("output.pdf")

You can change a dropdown field's font size using a float value in PyPDFForm:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_dropdown.pdf")

form.widgets["dropdown_1"].font_size = 30

form.write("output.pdf")

You can change a dropdown field's font color using an RGB tuple:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_dropdown.pdf")

form.widgets["dropdown_1"].font_color = (1, 0, 0)

form.write("output.pdf")

Change field editability

The readonly property of each form field controls its editability. Setting readonly to True flattens the field, making it uneditable, while setting it to False unflattens it, making it editable. For example, the following code snippet shows how you can make different form fields editable in this PDF form after they have been flattened:

from PyPDFForm import PdfWrapper

form = PdfWrapper("sample_template_with_dropdown.pdf")

form.fill(
    {
        "test_1": "test_1",
        "test_2": "test_2",
        "test_3": "test_3",
        "check_1": True,
        "check_2": True,
        "check_3": True,
        "radio_1": 1,
        "dropdown_1": 0,
    },
    flatten=True,
)
form.widgets["test_2"].readonly = False  # text
form.widgets["check_3"].readonly = False  # checkbox
form.widgets["radio_1"].readonly = False  # radio button group
form.widgets["dropdown_1"].readonly = False  # dropdown

form.write("output.pdf")