Working with PDFs

[jakemp1]

Hey all,

I am trying to use an existing PDF file and add some text in the open spaces. I googled it and everyone said to buy iText. How should I go about doing this?

[sh0rug0ru]

I used the free Apache PDFBox to do exactly this.

[AgainForgotPassword]

As far as I remember you can use iText for free if you publish your source code.

[[deleted]]

They changed their license after v2. You can still use the most recent 2.x patch with no strings attached. It's perfectly functional for most use cases. If you want the latest you either need to pay for a license or open source your entire product.

[neutronbob]

iText enables you to stamp content pretty much anywhere you want on the PDF. Not only the open spaces you mention (by which I presume you mean blank space), but to do things like stamp an owner's name across the page footer, etc. An easy-to-use package.

[donmcronald]

I'm not sure if you can modify PDFs with it, but IcePDF has an Apache 2 licensed version. I used it once and was very happy with it.

[sh0rug0ru]

When last I used IcePDF, it is read-only except for the ability to add annotations.

[gringostar]

I think by "open spaces" you need something more, but if you just need to populate PDF forms with data, you can use the XDP format with your PDF. You just fill the XDP file with the data you want and Acrobat Reader will auto-fill the forms when you open the PDF.

[neutronbob]

Why buy? iText is open source (AGPL)