Error referencing form fields.

Article ID: A1014
Last Review: June 12, 2006
Revision: 1.0

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• DynamicPDF Merger for .NET
• DynamicPDF Merger for Java
• DynamicPDF Merger for COM/ActiveX

• Unable to populate the form fields.
• Unable to reference a form field.
• FieldList.Count() returns a value of 1, even if the PDF form has more than one form fields.
• Unable to access the form fields for use in CreateLabel() or PositionPageElement() methods of the PdfFormField class.

This happens generally while filling in PDF documents that are created in Adobe Designer. Designer typically saves the names of the form fields in a hierarchical manner. A form field's name could be the concatenation of its parent's name. For example a form field name might be "Parent2.Parent1.FormFieldName" instead of "FormFieldName" as might be expected.

The form field's FullName must be used while filling in the fields or when accessing methods like CreateLabel() or PositionpageElement().

The Parent-Child relationship (i.e. "Parent.Child") has to be used as the full name of the form field where "Child" is the form field's actual name, and "Parent" is its parent field's name. The "." is a delimiter representing the parent child relationship between the form fields in the PDF document.

C#:
document.Form.Fields["form1[0].#subform[0].TextField1[0]"].Value = "ceTe Software";

VB.NET:
MyDocument.Form.Fields("form1(0).#subform(0).TextField1(0)").Value = "ceTe Software"

Java:
document.getForm().getFields().getFormField("form1[0].#subform[0].TextField1[0]").setValue("ceTe Software");

ASP:
MyDocument.Form.Fields.Item("form1(0).#subform(0).TextField1(0)").Value = "ceTe Software"

You can use the sample "FormFieldReader" example included with the download of our product to find out the full names of any form fields that are unknown in your PDF.