what is the expected order? Is it by location, top left to bottom
right? Calculation order ...
Never heard that order matters for flattening. Is the proprietry
software throwing any errors which would be a hint?
BR
Maruan
Am Dienstag, dem 30.01.2024 um 15:27 -0600 schrieb Dwayne Parks:
> Hello list!
>
> I'm dealing with a proprietary software product that accepts PDFs
> with
> fields in them to "flatten" into a final output PDF. The difficulty
> is
> that it expects the ordering of the fields (or their associated
> widgets)
> to be in a certain order. I don't know the exact details of this,
> but
> it takes much trial and error for our folks here manually deleting
> and
> recreating fields, trying them and seeing if they are accepted.
>
> So, to greatly streamline the process of getting the field/widget
> content in the PDF files in a correct order, I would like to write a
> utility that takes a configuration file containing a list of Field
> Names
> and reorders the content in the PDF to match the order they are in
> the
> configuration file.
>
> My naive initial idea is to:
>
> - Write a utility that outputs the current list of fields (in the
> PDF in the order that they are there) into a config file
> - Allow a user to reorder the lines of field names as desired
> - Write a utility that takes the config file and the PDF and
> rebuilds the field list/tree in the order that the config file
> specifies... then writes out the updated PDF contents to a new
> PDF file
>
> Alternately, I believe that there is an order for forms/widgets that
> is
> specified in Adobe Acrobat (tab order?) that I might be able to try
> to
> try to recreate. I'm not sure if that will work, but it would allow
> non-technical users to define the needed order without intervention
> from
> technical staff.
>
> I realize that there might be issues with combined field/widget
> fields
> if it comes to needing to order the widgets instead, but I am wanting
> to
> start with the above and go from there.
>
> So, I have a few questions to start with that someone might be able
> to
> help me out with!
>
> - Are there any examples of doing this sort of order modification?
> - Is it possible to reorder field contents at the PDDocument /
> PDAcroForm / PDField level?
> - Is it possible to reorder widget annotations at the PDAnnotiation /
> PDAnnotationWidget level?
> - Do I need to drop down to the COS* object level to do this?
>
> Thanks in advance for any pointers, info or suggestions!
>
> - Dwayne
>
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