PDF Importer for Open Office - Solved with Evince

J

JayArr

Hi all

I was searching for a way to "form fill" government .pdf files and one of the older suggestions (on this site) was to install the 'pdf import extension' for Open Office. This sounds good to me but I can't seem to figure out how to get it done. I've tried all of the Linux and Mac files available on the Open Office extensions page but none of them will load. I also can't find them in my ports tree to compile them myself. Are these no longer available for FreeBSD or am I just not looking in the right place?

I'm running FreeBSD 11.2 and Open Office 4.1.6

JayArr
 
The following is rather a work-around, but I like it better: even non-fillable documents become fillable. I use LibreOffice, and believe the same is possible with OpenOffice.
I convert .pdf files to .png and insert those pictures in Calc (spreadsheet application of LibreOffice). Then I select "To background" under "Arrange" of the context menu. I adjust the cells' size to fit the fillable fields and voilà. Then I add formulas as needed, e.g. in tax forms and so on.
 
I use graphics/gimp since I already have it and use for other purposes.
The classical way is to use ghostscript (there are several ports/packages available):
Code: 
gs -sDEVICE=png16m -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -sOutputFile=file%02d.png -r300 file.pdf
It is also possible to use convert from ImageMagick (there are several ports/packages too):
Code: 
convert -density 300 file.pdf file%02d.png
In both examples 300 is the density in DPI, you may want to adjust it to avoid rescaling the image in the the office application.
 
6109


OK, gs changed a few of the fonts but it generated the file and I was able to insert/picture and then Format/Arrange/ToBackground but then what a nightmare lining up all the boxes, this is a customs form I want to fill out and it's got well over 100 boxes per page. I can load an OS onto a hard drive in less time than I could line up all the spreadsheet boxes to the form. Maybe this works with forms that only have a dozen or so boxes but not this one, there has to be an easier way.
 
Thanks all!

Evince is the solution I'll use, it works perfectly, it allows input in all the boxes, it works with my xfce desktop and prints correctly on my old Xerox copier.

Mission accomplished.
 
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