This is a simple web service based on Apache PDFBox, that lets you generate filled PDF forms using a set of values you post to the endpoint.

Usage

The service provides two endpoints / and /template.

/template generates an example payload for the given fillable PDF.

For example, to generate a template for an IRS W-9 form, you can make this request and pipe the output through jq:

curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:8080/template \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{
	"url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/fw9--2018.pdf"
}' | jq

The response is a template containing the URL along with the fields and their default values, like this:

{
  "url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/fw9--2018.pdf",
  "values": {
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_1[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_2[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[0]": "Off",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[1]": "Off",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[2]": "Off",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[3]": "Off",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[4]": "Off",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[5]": "Off",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].f1_3[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[6]": "Off",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].f1_4[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Exemptions[0].f1_5[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Exemptions[0].f1_6[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Address[0].f1_7[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Address[0].f1_8[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_9[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_10[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].SSN[0].f1_11[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].SSN[0].f1_12[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].SSN[0].f1_13[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].EmployerID[0].f1_14[0]": "",
    "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].EmployerID[0].f1_15[0]": ""
  }
}

Once you know the structure of the payload, you can generate a custom payload and post it to the / endpoint to generate a filled-in PDF, like this:

curl --request POST \
  --url http://localhost:8080/ \
  --output example.pdf \
  --header 'content-type: application/json' \
  --data '{
      "url": "https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/fw9--2018.pdf",
      "values": {
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_1[0]": "Foo Bar",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_2[0]": "Baz LLC",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[0]": "1",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[1]": "Off",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[2]": "Off",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[3]": "Off",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[4]": "Off",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[5]": "Off",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].f1_3[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].c1_1[6]": "Off",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].FederalClassification[0].f1_4[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Exemptions[0].f1_5[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Exemptions[0].f1_6[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Address[0].f1_7[0]": "123 Fake Street",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].Address[0].f1_8[0]": "Cincinnati, OH 45241",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_9[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].f1_10[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].SSN[0].f1_11[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].SSN[0].f1_12[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].SSN[0].f1_13[0]": "",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].EmployerID[0].f1_14[0]": "12",
        "topmostSubform[0].Page1[0].EmployerID[0].f1_15[0]": "3456789"
      }
    }'

The response saved in example.pdf is a filled-in PDF:

Docker

You can run the service using the docker image like this:

docker run -p 8080:8080 brianpursley/pdf-filler:latest