Fill Out PDF Forms from an Excel Array

Question

The scenario is this:

My company has 2000 customers, and we need to send the all 2000 customers a credit application via PDF. What complicates this is that certain parts of the PDF need to have customer data filled in before the form is sent to the customer. The data that needs to be filled in is currently inside of an Excel array.

As you probably guessed, what I want to do is write a script that takes the Excel array and for each row of data the script will fill it into the PDF form, save a copy of it, print the document, and repeat until all rows have been filled into their respective PDF forms.

My questions are as follows:

1. Is there one particular programming language (or framework) that is particularly well suited for this, and does it have a low learning curve? (I only know enough to write basic JavaScript at the moment)
2. In the recommended language/framework, what specifically will I need to learn? (aside from the basics like print, for each, if statements)
3. Are there any particular or general GOTCHAs I should watch out for in writing the script? Keep in mind, this will be the first computer script I will have ever created, so even basic/elementary GOTCHAs can come into play due to my total lack of experience.

EDIT I should probably specify that I would prefer to write this script in Python if it is at all possible, simply because of all the good things I have heard about it so far.

Answer 1

There are applications that might be able to do this without programming. Here's one that costs $249

http://www.pureforms.com/Products/PFPrintMerge/pfprintmerge.htm

I have never used it -- but there are plenty of products if you search google. If you decide to go the programming route -- you need a PDF SDK for whatever language/framework you choose. There are many to choose from for .NET and Java.

EDIT: You asked for python. See this other SO question.

Answer 2

Not that difficult really. You can convert PDF to excel first, then copy the customer data to it. After that just create a new PDF from excel. Here is an article about how to convert PDF file to excel.

And here is another article shows how to create PDF freely.

www.anypdftools.com/free-word-to-pdf-creator.html