Creating XFA Form and Embedding it to a regular PDF

13
votes

I have a PDF which doesn't contain XFA data. What I want to do is, create a XFA Form template programmatically (not by using Adobe LiveCycle or similar program) and then embed it to the PDF, then fill the XFA Form.

Is this possible? Or do I have to use Adobe LiveCycle?

EDIT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XFA#Profiles in this wiki link it says following:

XFAF (XFA Foreground) subset - (introduced in XFA 2.5) - a form in which each page of the XFA form overlays a PDF background. It can be used only for static XFA forms. This architecture uses only a subset of XFA. It can be packaged inside a regular PDF document or as a standalone XDP file with embedded PDF. In XFAF each XFA field corresponds to a PDF interactive field (AcroForm field).

So I believe, what I ask is possible, but currently I don't know how...

1
pdfpdf-generationitextxfa
I don't know of any software product that can do this. I'm also very interested to hear if somebody would have any pointers towards such a product. - Bruno Lowagie
Is there a reason why you want to work with XFA instead of a smart PDF? - Max Wyss
No, I'm just looking for a proper API that fulfill my needs. Smart PDF doesn't seem to be an API, but a software. Am I wrong? - guneykayim
Er... "if Adobe can do it, anyone else can also do it" is kind of demeaning. It's as if you have no idea how many man hours have gone into developing tools such as iText, XFA Worker,... - Bruno Lowagie
@MaxWyss the main reason I think for most of us is that we have no choice. For instance, we submit pdfs to courts which require the data be in XFA because they are typically using older technology and slower to change. - user1567291

1 Answers

1
votes

XFA was marked as deprecated inside the PDF specification also with Support of Adobe in upcoming ISO PDF 2.0 standard. You shouldn't rely on technology, which is outdated. So please use normal PDF forms, but not XFA form.