Ruby Requires Chilkat v11.7.0+

What PDF Text Replacement Does Not Change: Metadata, Links, Form Fields

See more PDF Text Replacement Examples

TextReplace changes the page content only. A placeholder that also appears in the document's metadata (the Title, Author, Subject, Keywords, Creator or Producer), in a link's target URL, or in a form field's value is left as it is and reported in "notReplaced" with "where" saying which. The invoice template's title is "Invoice for {{customer}}" and its "View this invoice online" link points at a URL that holds {{customer}}. Ruby

require 'chilkat'

success = false

#  This example requires the Chilkat API to have been previously unlocked.
#  See Global Unlock Sample for sample code.

#  The PDF used in this example is available at invoice_template.pdf

pdf = Chilkat::CkPdf.new()
success = pdf.LoadFile("qa_data/pdf/invoice_template.pdf")
if (success == false)
    print pdf.lastErrorText() + "\n";
    exit
end

json = Chilkat::CkJsonObject.new()
json.UpdateString("placeholders.customer","Acme Corp")
#  (The other placeholders are left as they are for this example.)
json.UpdateString("unusedPlaceholders","keep")

jsonOut = Chilkat::CkJsonObject.new()
success = pdf.TextReplace("apply",json,jsonOut)
if (success == false)
    print pdf.lastErrorText() + "\n";
    exit
end

print "In the page content, customer was replaced " + jsonOut.IntOf("replacements[0].count").to_s() + " times." + "\n";

#  Where else the placeholder occurs, untouched:
i = 0
count_i = jsonOut.SizeOfArray("notReplaced")
while i < count_i
    jsonOut.put_I(i)
    print "not replaced: {{" + jsonOut.stringOf("notReplaced[i].field") + "}} in " + jsonOut.stringOf("notReplaced[i].where") + "\n";
    i = i + 1
end

success = pdf.WriteFile("qa_output/invoice_customer.pdf")
if (success == false)
    print pdf.lastErrorText() + "\n";
    exit
end

#  Sample output:

#  In the page content, customer was replaced 2 times.
#  not replaced: {{customer}} in metadata
#  not replaced: {{customer}} in linkTarget