PDF editing via Website

You can do it, but not with Acrobat* - the usual way to allow web servers to dynamically add stuff to PDFs is to use the various open-source class libraries for PHP, Perl, etc.

FPDF is the most common; it runs on PHP and there are some add-ons such as FPDI and FPDI-protection which allow use of templates and setting of security. Google for them.

You'd make up the base poster, leaving the dynamic bits off entirely, then the CGI script would read the PDF from disk, add those elements, and output the PDF direct to the browser as a byte stream. Text is by far the easiest thing to add this way, the only limit being that the server script has to have access to a copy of whatever font you want to use. FPDF comes with some and also a utility to convert normal TTF files into a format it can read.


*technically it's possible to control Acrobat via commandline parameters and scripting, but the full range of features isn't accessible, and of course most websites run Linux. Added to that, the Acrobat EULA is very picky about using Acrobat as an unattended web service.

Many thanks for the speedy reply.

You don't know of any commercial products as programming PHP isn't something I am keen on doing

Off hand not I don't - but FPDF is not difficult to use. There are example scripts on the website, and adding a line of text to an existing page takes about 4 lines of code. The only fiddly thing is working out the x,y coordinates of the text object (best done by guessing, running the script, nudging it, etc.)

You couldn't avoid programming even with a commercial product, as you'll have to integrate the variables with the rest of the website and define what and where to print onto each poster.

Also bear in mind in the current economic climate, php developers are falling out the woodwork. You can get pretty much anything written for the price of a burger.