PDF _editor_ for Java

[Aleksi Kallio]

I need to generate PDF output from a Servlet. There are dozens of PDF
generators out there, but the problem is that an another guy is
designing the layout of the PDF.

What I'm looking for is a tool that would allow me to open (or somehow
"reverse engineer") a PDF, put some data in it and regenerate it to
user. I don't want to manually decode a PDF to whatever internal
template format the generator might be using. And the another guy isn't
probably going to learn the template format of some a generator package.

Any suggestions?

 

[Dave Miller]

I need to generate PDF output from a Servlet. There are dozens of PDF
generators out there, but the problem is that an another guy is
designing the layout of the PDF.

What I'm looking for is a tool that would allow me to open (or somehow
"reverse engineer") a PDF, put some data in it and regenerate it to
user. I don't want to manually decode a PDF to whatever internal
template format the generator might be using. And the another guy isn't
probably going to learn the template format of some a generator package.

Any suggestions?

I've used the iText classes (not to read pdf but to generate) with good
results. He has a pdfreader class in it...
http://www.lowagie.com/iText/docs.html

 

[Bob Kranson]

Adobe is the owner of the PDF specification. It is a markup language.
Maybe you can have the designer of the PDF form take an honest look at the
FOP supported tags. Then, you can come to terms on implementing his designs
via java FOP: http://xml.apache.org/fop/index.html

 

[Miguel De Anda]

Adobe is the owner of the PDF specification. It is a markup language.
Maybe you can have the designer of the PDF form take an honest look at the
FOP supported tags. Then, you can come to terms on implementing his designs
via java FOP: http://xml.apache.org/fop/index.html

Oh wow, that project looks very good. So much for not using my
computer over the weekend. Have you used it much? How stable is it? Do
you think its good enough to use as a replacement for my current
printing system? (Mostly for formatting the print)