Auto-Populating Form Fields

[Former Community Member]

I've been researching and researching this and haven't been able to figure out how to do this yet. What I want to accomplish is to get data from my mysql database and have it fill in the the majority of the fields on the form. I don't need the data to go back the other way, as it is just for printing sake. I know this used to be able to be done with FDF, and I can get that to work on the desktop but not on the web. I've been trying to use XML to transfer the data but have been unsuccessful in getting this to work on the desktop or on the web without going up and using the menu's. I have searched the internet over and have been unable to find a guide on how to do this. If someone knows of one, I'd appreciate it. Otherwise any input would be great.



Do I need a special server package or something to do this on the web?



Thanks,



Justin

[Former Community Member]

Depends on how you want to do this. You can have the form access the database directly (this will have its own set of challenges) or you could have a servlet/program get the data before you render the form and merge it into the form before the user sees it. How do you want this to work?

[Former Community Member]

I guess I should state that I'm a newbie when it comes to adobe and pdf. I thought it was going to be as simple as having my program write an xml file and have the pdf that I already created import that data to populate the fields. So I guess I'm leaning towards the latter.

[Former Community Member]

Any sites or books or anything I can use to get up to speed on this?

[Former Community Member]

Justin,



I have a very similar scenario to you. Have you managed to make any headway on this?