Flex app to load a pdf form in flash, fill it and download as pdf

Question

I'd like to write a simple flex app that works like the pdfescape.com service. (you can try it without registering at www.pdfescape.com)

Here the steps I need to implement

1) User upload a pdf form

2) The form is converted in aa flash form

3) User fill the form (using a flash app)

4) User download the filled form as pdf document

Does anybody have some advices to start ? For step 2 I have found many pdf to flash converter but I need to leave the form editable.

thanks for your patience

Andrea

Answer 1

Flash cannot render PDF files, so there would be a fair amount of work that needs to be done on the server and to dynamically parse and build the form within flex.

Off the top of my head:

The PDF to Flash converter probably creates images or formatted text displayed in it own reader?

1) User uploads form.

2) Server parses form using a PDF library to get list of fields (saved to DB)

3) Flex app builds form to be filled in, saved to DB

4) Server fills in form fields using PDF library and saves for download.

Hope this helps...