How to Fill PDF Combo Box in HTML?

For PDF/ web developers, it can be difficult to allow users to fill in PDF combo box on a website. PDF is not a web-native format, hence browsers don’t allow user interactions with PDF combo box.

How to let users fill PDF combo box in HTML

There are a few solutions you can consider:

1. Spend extra time recreating the PDF Form in HTML from scratch
2. Ask Google/ StackOverflow/ AIs and try to figure out the PDF to HTML conversion scripts
3. Delegate this headache to FormVu and use the time you saved on other priorities In this article, we are going to focus on the third option. FormVu is an SDK for converting fillable PDF forms into interactive HTML forms, so your users can directly fill in the PDF combo box in HTML because it’s an HTML component at this point!

Step 1. Convert PDF Forms to HTML Forms

There are different ways to use FormVu. You can use our cloud API, run FormVu with command line, or add it as a dependency to run in Java. I will be using the command line here as an example.

1. Ensure you have Java installed on your machine
2. Download the FormVu trial jar
3. Set the trial jar address, input directory and output directory
4. Run the command! java -Xmx512M -jar formvu-trial.jar /inputDirectory/ /outputDirectory/ When running from the command line, settings are controlled by passing in system properties. You can learn more about it in this support document.

Step 2. Fill in the Combo Box

Embed the form.html file in your website.

When your users open this html, they should be able to fill in the combo box just as how they do it with the original PDF form.

Step 3. Submit

FormVu allows you to collect data filled into the combo box. The converted file comes with a built-in viewer. At the top left, click on “submit form” button. Your users can then fill in a link to submit this form to you.

An example of gathered data:

FormVu is used by big companies such as Jack Henry & Associates Inc, Edward Jones, and more. It allows developers to enhance data submission and process filled PDF forms. The converted HTML forms are also much easier to integrate into web apps. Get the trial jar and try it out!