VB.NET 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}}. VB.NET

Dim success As Boolean = 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

Dim pdf As New Chilkat.Pdf
success = pdf.LoadFile("qa_data/pdf/invoice_template.pdf")
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(pdf.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


Dim json As New Chilkat.JsonObject
json.UpdateString("placeholders.customer","Acme Corp")
'  (The other placeholders are left as they are for this example.)
json.UpdateString("unusedPlaceholders","keep")

Dim jsonOut As New Chilkat.JsonObject
success = pdf.TextReplace("apply",json,jsonOut)
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(pdf.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


Debug.WriteLine("In the page content, customer was replaced " & jsonOut.IntOf("replacements[0].count") & " times.")

'  Where else the placeholder occurs, untouched:
Dim i As Integer = 0
Dim count_i As Integer = jsonOut.SizeOfArray("notReplaced")
While i < count_i
    jsonOut.I = i
    Debug.WriteLine("not replaced: {{" & jsonOut.StringOf("notReplaced[i].field") & "}} in " & jsonOut.StringOf("notReplaced[i].where"))
    i = i + 1
End While

success = pdf.WriteFile("qa_output/invoice_customer.pdf")
If (success = False) Then
    Debug.WriteLine(pdf.LastErrorText)
    Exit Sub
End If


'  Sample output:

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