Can I access XFA forms using the Adobe PDF Library?

Using the Adobe PDF Library, you can access the XML structure behind an XFA form field.

XFA, or XML Forms Architecture, is a set of proprietary XML specifications for use with web forms. XFA forms are saved within a PDF document.

If you want to merge this XML content into another PDF file, use PDDocImportCosDocNotes. This method will import the entire PDF file. You can also copy some CosString objects between files.

If you want to export the XML content from the PDF form document and save it as a separate document, or manipulate the XFA form field, you need to install an XML parser. A variety of third party vendor tools are available. Adobe PDF Library is not designed to read XML content.

PDF Java Toolkit, another product offered by Datalogics, can work with XML and XFA Forms content. The FillForm sample program demonstrates this workflow.