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Xojo Plugin 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}}.

Chilkat Xojo Plugin Downloads

Xojo Plugin
Dim success As Boolean
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

Dim pdf As New Chilkat.Pdf
success = pdf.LoadFile("qa_data/pdf/invoice_template.pdf")
If (success = False) Then
    System.DebugLog(pdf.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If

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

Dim jsonOut As New Chilkat.JsonObject
success = pdf.TextReplace("apply",json,jsonOut)
If (success = False) Then
    System.DebugLog(pdf.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If

System.DebugLog("In the page content, customer was replaced " + Str(jsonOut.IntOf("replacements[0].count")) + " times.")

//  Where else the placeholder occurs, untouched:
Dim i As Int32
i = 0
Dim count_i As Int32
count_i = jsonOut.SizeOfArray("notReplaced")
While i < count_i
    jsonOut.I = i
    System.DebugLog("not replaced: {{" + jsonOut.StringOf("notReplaced[i].field") + "}} in " + jsonOut.StringOf("notReplaced[i].where"))
    i = i + 1
Wend

success = pdf.WriteFile("qa_output/invoice_customer.pdf")
If (success = False) Then
    System.DebugLog(pdf.LastErrorText)
    Return
End If

//  Sample output:

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