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Enumerate AcroForm fields across the whole document

Source: R/form_fields.R
pdf_form_fields.Rd

Returns one tibble row per form widget across every page of the document. Walks each page's annotations, filters to those of subtype widget, and reads PDFium's form-field metadata through a transient FPDF_FORMHANDLE (init / enumerate / teardown happens inside one call - the handle is not exposed to R).

Usage

pdf_form_fields(doc)

Arguments

doc

A pdfium_doc from pdf_doc_open(), or a character path.

Value

A tibble with columns:

  • field_index integer - 1-based, document-wide ordering (page-major, then in-page annotation order).

  • page_num integer - 1-based page the widget lives on.

  • field_type character - one of "pushbutton", "checkbox", "radiobutton", "combobox", "listbox", "textfield", "signature", or one of the XFA variants ("xfa_*"); "unknown" for non-AcroForm widgets PDFium can't classify.

  • field_flags integer - raw PDF form-field flags bitmask (bit 1 = ReadOnly, bit 2 = Required, bit 3 = NoExport, bit 13 = Password for textfields, bit 16 = MultiLine for textfields, etc.; see PDF spec Table 226).

  • is_readonly, is_required, is_no_export logical - decoded universal flag bits (bits 1, 2, 3) for convenience.

  • is_checked logical - current state of the widget; TRUE / FALSE for checkbox / radiobutton fields, NA for every other field type.

  • control_count integer - total number of widgets in this field's control group (≥ 1; > 1 for radio button groups with multiple physical widgets). NA if PDFium reports failure.

  • control_index integer - 0-based position of this row's widget within its control group. For a checkbox or a standalone widget this is 0. NA if PDFium reports failure.

  • name character - fully qualified field name, the period-joined dotted path PDFium reports (e.g. "address.city").

  • alternate_name character - the field's user-facing label (the /TU entry), shown by viewers as a tooltip.

  • value character - the field's current display value. For text fields this is the entered text. For combo / listbox fields this is the label of the selected option (use export_value for the underlying export name). For checkbox / radio fields this is the appearance-state name ("Off" or the on-state name).

  • export_value character - the field's export value (/V). Same as value for text fields. For buttons, the value that gets submitted in form data (e.g. "Yes" for a checkbox, or the radio's on-state name).

  • bounds_left, bounds_bottom, bounds_right, bounds_top - widget rectangle in PDF user space.

  • options list-column of character vectors - the choice labels for combobox and listbox fields; empty character vector for other types.

  • is_option_selected list-column of logical vectors, one element per option (matches options). TRUE when the option is currently selected. Empty for non-choice fields.

  • additional_actions_js list-column of length-4 character vectors named c("key_stroke", "format", "validate", "calculate"). Each element is the JavaScript source string PDFium reports for the corresponding trigger event, or "" when the trigger has no JS handler. Surfaced read-only here; v0.2.0 may expose a writer.

Returns a 0-row tibble of the same schema when the document has no AcroForm dictionary.

Details

Wraps FPDFDOC_InitFormFillEnvironment, FPDFDOC_ExitFormFillEnvironment, the FPDFAnnot_GetFormField* family, FPDFAnnot_IsChecked for the check/radio state, and FPDFAnnot_GetOption* for choice-list options.

See also

pdf_annotations() for the page-level annotation surface that includes widget annotations alongside text, highlights, ink, etc.