Before you start, make sure you have :ref:`installed pdfminer.six<install>`.
The second thing you need is a PDF with AcroForms (as found in PDF files with fillable forms or multiple choices). There are some examples of these in the GitHub repository under `samples/acroform`.
Only AcroForm interactive forms are supported, XFA forms are not supported.
..code-block:: python
from pdfminer.pdfparser import PDFParser
from pdfminer.pdfdocument import PDFDocument
from pdfminer.pdftypes import resolve1
from pdfminer.psparser import PSLiteral, PSKeyword
from pdfminer.utils import decode_text
data = {}
def decode_value(value):
# decode PSLiteral, PSKeyword
if isinstance(value, (PSLiteral, PSKeyword)):
value = value.name
# decode bytes
if isinstance(value, bytes):
value = decode_text(value)
return value
with open(file_path, 'rb') as fp:
parser = PDFParser(fp)
doc = PDFDocument(parser)
res = resolve1(doc.catalog)
if 'AcroForm' not in res:
raise ValueError("No AcroForm Found")
fields = resolve1(doc.catalog['AcroForm'])['Fields'] # may need further resolving
for f in fields:
field = resolve1(f)
name, values = field.get('T'), field.get('V')
# decode name
name = decode_text(name)
# resolve indirect obj
values = resolve1(values)
# decode value(s)
if isinstance(values, list):
values = [decode_value(v) for v in values]
else:
values = decode_value(values)
data.update({name: values})
print(name, values)
This code snippet will print all the fields name and value and save them in the "data" dictionary.
How it works:
- Initialize the parser and the PDFDocument objects
(the catalog contains references to other objects defining the document structure, see section 7.7.2 of PDF 32000-1:2008 specs: https://www.adobe.com/devnet/pdf/pdf_reference.html)