Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: Peter Flynn Newsgroups: comp.text.pdf,comp.editors Subject: Re: free app to modify pdf files Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 00:16:56 +0100 Organization: Usenet Labs Bozon etector Facility Lines: 22 Message-ID: References: <102kd6e$b2fc$2@dont-email.me> <102khrt$2448$1@nnrp.usenet.blueworldhosting.com> <102ljce$n6ok$1@dont-email.me> <103i5if$3340l$2@dont-email.me> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net /XceQXA0XyM2exMMPiFVtgz9bwLK11r+1hIv2BF5K9lcSmMnmT Cancel-Lock: sha1:6ILUTFX6UN+U+CZIn1YpCtwNSJ4= sha256:jXiou7+QZkOSiKjggfJx4lwfKJKtUDEm9Gh+1wOSAVU= User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird Content-Language: en-US In-Reply-To: <103i5if$3340l$2@dont-email.me> Xref: csiph.com comp.text.pdf:2696 comp.editors:106804 On 26/06/2025 01:51, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote: > On Wed, 25 Jun 2025 16:37:26 +0100, Peter Flynn wrote: > >> Because the "fields" (blank spaces) are the same location every >> time, using LaTeX makes it possible to do the whole things from a >> script. > > I used to do something similar for filling out my GST return, only using a > Python script and the Cairo graphics library -- import each page of the > PDF file, draw the filled-in entries on top of it, and print the result > out. > > I did routines for things like splitting out the digits of a number so > each would fit, nicely centred, in its own box -- does LaTEX make this > sort of thing easy? I wrote a couple of macros to do this. Not hard, but fiddly, and most forms are internally inconsistent in that the digit boxes are not always the same size or shape. OCR forms are better. Fortunately becoming less and less common these days. Peter