Ability to set font when updating form fields

[rsk2]

Explanation

Is there a way to set the font, font size, and font weight when writing to PDF form fields?

[stefan6419846]

This has been added in 4.3.0: https://pypdf.readthedocs.io/en/stable/modules/PdfWriter.html#pypdf.PdfWriter.update_page_form_field_values (PR #2636). AFAIK the font weight usually is a font property and thus not supported there, unless you reference a regular, bold and/or italic font.

[Butterfly]

Just a lurker here chiming in to say that the ability to change fonts is a decades old top level accessibility/usability talking point. So basically.. Thank you for thinking of the needs of others! 💜

[pubpub-zz]

Just to clarify, the fonts needs to exists within the PDF. We are not yet able to import a TTF file and use it directly.

[rsk2]

Ok. So how does the font id work? How do I know which font ids exist in the PDF? I tried randomly using /F1, but I got this error: Font dictionary for /F1 not found.

[pubpub-zz]

@rsk2
can you have a look at the tests folder to see how to use it ?

[rsk2]

@pubpub-zz I looked at the tests folder; maybe it will be better if I share some code. This is the code I am using to update the PDF:

writer = PdfWriter(clone_from="mypdf.pdf")
writer.update_page_form_field_values(None, {"some_key": ("Text_2", "/F1", 0)})

But I get the error: Font dictionary for /F1 not found. Same issue occurs with /F2 and /F3

It does work if I don't provide a font as follows:

writer.update_page_form_field_values(None, {"some_key": ("Text_2", "", 0)})

Also, the font size input doesn't seem to make a difference. If I pass in a size like 1 or 10, the output is the same as that for 0 (autosize).

[pubpub-zz]

@rsk2 can you provide the pdf you are trying to fill up

[rsk2]

Sorry, I had to remove the PDF I uploaded previously due to some issues. But here's another PDF in which the same issues occur: Stop Payment Form.pdf

[pubpub-zz]

when you look within the document you can see that 3 fonts are available:

make a new try with "/HeBo", "/Helv", "/ZaDb"