In this article, we are going to demonstrate how to read and extract the values of fillable form fields in a PDF document programmatically in Java.
The library we used:
Free Spire.PDF for Java
The example PDF document:
Free Spire.PDF for Java enables developers to read the value of a specific form field along with read the values of all form fields in a PDF document. The below examples will show you how to use Free Spire.PDF for Java to accomplish these two functions.
Read and extract value from a specific form field
import com.spire.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.widget.PdfFormWidget;
import com.spire.pdf.widget.PdfTextBoxFieldWidget;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
public class ReadSpeicificFormValue {
public static void main(String[] args){
//Load PDF document
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument();
pdf.loadFromFile("fillFormFields.pdf");
//Get form fields
PdfFormWidget formWidget = (PdfFormWidget)pdf.getForm();
//Get the textbox by index or by name
PdfTextBoxFieldWidget textbox = ( PdfTextBoxFieldWidget)formWidget.getFieldsWidget().get(0);
//PdfTextBoxFieldWidget textbox = ( PdfTextBoxFieldWidget)formWidget.getFieldsWidget().get("TextBox");
//Get the text of the textbox
String text = textbox.getText();
try {
//Write text into a .txt file
FileWriter writer = new FileWriter("GetSpecificFieldValue.txt");
writer.write(text);
writer.flush();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
pdf.close();
}
}
Read and extract values from all form fields
import com.spire.pdf.PdfDocument;
import com.spire.pdf.fields.PdfField;
import com.spire.pdf.widget.*;
import java.io.FileWriter;
import java.io.IOException;
public class ReadAllFormValues {
public static void main(String[] args)
//Load PDF document
PdfDocument pdf = new PdfDocument();
pdf.loadFromFile("fillFormFields.pdf");
//Get form fields
PdfFormWidget formWidget = (PdfFormWidget)pdf.getForm();
StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
//Loop through the form field widget collection and extract the value of each field
for (int i = 0; i < formWidget.getFieldsWidget().getCount(); i++)
{
PdfField field = (PdfField)formWidget.getFieldsWidget().getList().get(i);
if (field instanceof PdfTextBoxFieldWidget)
{
PdfTextBoxFieldWidget textBoxField = (PdfTextBoxFieldWidget)field ;
//Get text of textbox
String text = textBoxField.getText();
sb.append("The text in textbox is: " + text + "\r\n");
}
if (field instanceof PdfListBoxWidgetFieldWidget)
{
PdfListBoxWidgetFieldWidget listBoxField = (PdfListBoxWidgetFieldWidget)field;
sb.append("Listbox items are: \r\n");
//Get values of listbox
PdfListWidgetItemCollection items = listBoxField.getValues();
for (PdfListWidgetItem item : (Iterable<PdfListWidgetItem>) items)
{
sb.append(item.getValue() + "\r\n");
}
//Get selected value
String selectedValue = listBoxField.getSelectedValue();
sb.append("The selected value in the listbox is: " + selectedValue + "\r\n");
}
if (field instanceof PdfComboBoxWidgetFieldWidget)
{
PdfComboBoxWidgetFieldWidget comBoxField = (PdfComboBoxWidgetFieldWidget)field ;
sb.append("comBoxField items are: \r\n");
//Get values of comboBox
PdfListWidgetItemCollection items = comBoxField.getValues();
for (PdfListWidgetItem item : (Iterable<PdfListWidgetItem>) items)
{
sb.append(item.getValue() + "\r\n");
}
//Get selected value
String selectedValue = comBoxField.getSelectedValue();
sb.append("The selected value in the comBoxField is: " + selectedValue + "\r\n");
}
if (field instanceof PdfRadioButtonListFieldWidget)
{
PdfRadioButtonListFieldWidget radioBtnField = (PdfRadioButtonListFieldWidget)field;
//Get value of radio button
String value = radioBtnField.getValue();
sb.append("The text in radioButtonField is: " + value + "\r\n");
}
if (field instanceof PdfCheckBoxWidgetFieldWidget)
{
PdfCheckBoxWidgetFieldWidget checkBoxField = (PdfCheckBoxWidgetFieldWidget)field;
//Get the checked state of the checkbox
boolean state = checkBoxField.getChecked();
sb.append("Is the checkBox checked? " + state + "\r\n");
}
}
try {
//Write text into a .txt file
FileWriter writer = new FileWriter("GetAllValues.txt");
writer.write(sb.toString());
writer.flush();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
pdf.close();
}
}
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