= pdf_filler

The <b>pdf_filler</b> Rails plugin makes it easy to update existing PDFs that have form fields defined. 
Rather then building PDFs in Ruby using something like PDF-Writer, it is much easier to create a PDF in Acrobat, 
define fields, and update those fields using pdf_filler. An example would be a First/Last name field on a PDF that is possible to update.


== Requirements

This plugin requires RJB (Ruby Java Bridge), so you will need to set your JAVA_HOME environment variable to point your installation of Java.  

If your JAVA_HOME environment variable is not setup correctly you will get something like:

  
  Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
  ERROR:  Error installing pdf_filler-0.1.0.gem:
          ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

  /opt/local/bin/ruby extconf.rb
  *** extconf.rb failed ***
  Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
  necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
  details.  You may need configuration options.

  Provided configuration options:
          --with-opt-dir
          --without-opt-dir
          --with-opt-include
          --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
          --with-opt-lib
          --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
          --with-make-prog
          --without-make-prog
          --srcdir=.
          --curdir
          --ruby=/opt/local/bin/ruby
  extconf.rb:45: JAVA_HOME is not set. (RuntimeError)

  Gem files will remain installed in /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rjb-1.1.7 for inspection.
  Results logged to /opt/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/rjb-1.1.7/ext/gem_make.out



<b>On my Mac I set JAVA_HOME to be "/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.5/Home".</b>


== Installing

The recommended method to enable pdf_filler in your project is adding the pdf_filler gem to your environment. Add the following code to your Rails configuration in <tt>config/environment.rb</tt>:

  Rails::Initializer.run do |config|
    ...
    config.gem 'gbdev-pdf_filler', :lib => 'pdf_filler', source => 'http://gems.github.com/'
  end

Run <tt>sudo rake gems:install</tt> to install the gem.

Another alternative is to install pdf_filler as a Rails plugin:

  script/plugin install git://github.com/gbdev/pdf_filler.git


== Usage

1. You will need a PDF that has form fields to fill.

2. A writable directory to store the generated PDFs.

3. For a single page use the Page object?

    // ** Single page **
    page = GBDev::PDF::Page.new('/path/to/template.pdf')
    page.set_text(:full_name, 'Wes Hays')
    page.save_to('/path/to/save.pdf')
  
4. For a collection of pages to be added to a single PDF use a Book object.

    book = GBDev::PDF::Book.new
  
    page1 = GBDev::PDF::Page.new('/path/to/template1.pdf')
    page1.set_text(:full_name, 'Wes Hays')
  
    page2 = GBDev::PDF::Page.new('/path/to/template2.pdf')
    page2.set_text(:full_name, 'Darren Johnson')
  
    book.add_page(page1)
    book.add_page(page2)
  
    book.save_to('/page/to/book.pdf')
  
  
Note: You can use the shorter kernel methods PDFPage instead of GBDev::PDF::Page.new.  The same goes for PDFBook instead of GBDev::PDF::Book.new.

Example:
  
  page = PDFPage('/path/to/template.pdf')
  book = PDFBook()


== License

This plugin is released under the MIT license. Please contact weshays (http://github.com/weshays) 
or djohnson (http://github.com/djohnson) for any questions.