Reading PDF Forms Data into SharePoint Lists

Question

I have an application where customers fill out a PDF form and then post it to a sharepoint library. Once the document is posted, we want to kick of an event handler to extract the user data from the form and post it into one or more sharepoint lists.

Any ideas on how I get started- I'm a novice with PDF forms but have a good understanding of SharePoint development.

Answer 1

You can write a custom handler that catches a PDF Form submit as explained here (includes sample code).

Alternatively you can use a workflow that is triggered when a PDF Form is saved and extract the data from the form using a third party library.

If you prefer to use SharePoint Designer workflows then you can embed your .net code directly into the workflow using a product such as the Workflow Power Pack. (Disclaimer, I worked on this product and it is fab ;-).

You probably have a good reason to use PDF Forms, but you could also consider using InfoPath or even MS-Word to fill out your forms. It is easy to extract Word and InfoPath data from SharePoint and if you wish you can convert the documents to PDF as well.