Update: I neglected to mention that the user will NOT key the data on the forms directly but in our app which already manages all of the data on these forms. The idea is to send the data to the form and have it populate the appropriate 'fields' once the fields are added to the form template. This we have tested succesfully for the pdf files as mentioned below but not the other formats yet.


We have forms that are available in the following formats:

.emf Enhanced Windows MetaFile
.hp3 hp3 files using PCL-5
.pdf Acrobat Portable Document
.crd Coordinate
.ps PostScript Adobe 3.0
.wmf Windows Meta

All of the forms are really templates and are meant to manually filled in after printed. They do not contain actual 'fields' on them. Our goal is to fill in the forms for the user and print the forms based on data the user has already entered in our app. I have a field standards listing which details for every 'field' on each form what its fieldname should be if created. I have tested adding fields to the .pdf forms using (Adobe Acrobat Developer 5.0), generating the .xml file with data from VFP tables and then printing the form successfully with Acrobat Reader.

I am unfamiliar with the other formats listed above and what tools may be available to create fields on the forms in each of the above formats and how to populate those fields with VFP data. We do NOT want to recreate these forms ourselves but only add the fields to the forms as these forms are numerous and are updated on a yearly basis at times. Right now we are looking longterm and trying to decide what makes the most sense in the longrun. The layout of these forms change approximately once a year and then everytime that occurs the form with the fields on it would have to be modified to meet the new layout or the fields added once again to the new form that is provided to us without any fields on it. We need to determine if this same function can be done with the other formats and if so, what tools are available to do this.

For instance I know that for .ps files, you basically:
1. Send the data.
2. Send the form.
3. Send an end-of-job code.
But I am not sure of how to 'send the data.' I know that there are coordinates for where the data should go but is there a tool out there that will readin a .ps file and provide a gui development environment for placing the data on the form or determining the coordinates of the data relative to the .ps file that already exists for the form template?


Does anyone know if this is possible with the other formats and if there are any tools available out there to do this?

TIA,
Tracy