Am 12.08.2025 um 14:50 schrieb Ulf Dittmer:
For OBJ2 that makes sense, as it is the same info on both pages. But
filling in any of OBJ4, OBJ9 or OBJ10 (to name just a few), that data
appears on both page 1 and 3, in fields that have nothing to do with one
another.
OBJ4 is also on several pages (which is allowed). I opened the PDF in
Adobe and entered my first name, and it then appeared on page 3 at the
"wrong" place, but that's the problem of whoever created (or altered)
the PDF.
I think what you really want is to consider "Is there a way within the
PDFBox API to dis-ambiguate those fields" as an isolated question, i.e.
create a new field for each of the extra widgets.
Yes it would be possible. You'd have to create a new COSDictionary, copy
all the key/values (except kids, except T and AP), then create a new
PDField from that dictionary, add one of the widgets (and delete it from
the original field), calculate a new "T" value (field name).
I don't know if there is a commercial tool for this. It can probably be
done with PDFBox in less than a day. I might help for free but I'd
prefer you try first.
Tilman
org.apache.pdfbox.examples.interactive.form.PrintFields only lists those
fields once, but they do appear to be used on multiple pages.
Ulf
On Tue, Aug 12, 2025 at 2:41 PM Tilman Hausherr<[email protected]>
wrote:
Hi,
I don't see how these field names are double. Some of the fields have
several widgets, e.g. OBJ2 is on page 1 and page 3. This is done to have
the content on several pages.
Tilman
Am 12.08.2025 um 14:14 schrieb Ulf Dittmer:
Hello-
I'm encountering PDFs with forms that have non-unique field names.
Sometimes fields with the same names are used for the same information (a
useful scenario, making filling them out programmatically easier). But
sometimes the same names are used for entirely different field purposes.
Is there a way within the PDFBox API to dis-ambiguate those fields? Or
are
there tools that can do this (we do have a budget, so payware would be
OK,
within limits)?
These are government PDFs, so we don't control their creation. But if
there
is a way to edit them that addresses this, that would also work for us -
the forms do not change frequently.
http://ulfdittmer.com/Guide_TH.pdf is an example of such a PDF. OBJ3,
OBJ4,
OBJ10, OBJ18 and OBJ24 are field names that are used twice.
Any help would be appreciated.
Ulf
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