Create pdf like word merge

[ash sharma]

Hello,

I have requirement where i have to create a PDF document, same as word merge. The concept is, the data is populated in template file (tab separated) and then template file is merged with pdf document having placeholder for each field in template file.

Early response is appreaciated.
Regards.

[Ulf Dittmer]

Welcome to JavaRanch.

PDFs can't be merged like other file formats. There is very little that can be done with them once they have been created. A better approach would be to generate them dynamically (using a library like iText) for each set of data.

By the way, this forum is for diversions, not for actual questions. Someone will move the thread to a more appropriate forum.

[Shaan Shar]

I have tried iText earlier but it was not working fine...

[Ulf Dittmer]

Well, it does work nicely in general. If you're having problems with it, feel free to post those to the "Other Open Source projcts" forum, and we'll try to help you.

[Pete Thorson]

PDFBox might be worth a look: http://www.pdfbox.org/

It seemed to be easier to use for me and had a several samples. We used it to concatenate PDF files.

On a previous project we used Apache FOP to create PDFs from XML templates. Should be plenty of examples on this.

Another option is to actually just do a Word merge using Jawin or other JNI tool depending on your requirements.

[David O'Meara]

Moving to the Other Open Source projects forum.

Dave