Information
  • Author: Appian Corporation
  • Type: Plug-in (Function & Smart Service)
  • Support: This is an Appian supported plug-in. To the extent that this plug-in does not conform to its documentation, please submit a ticket to Appian Technical Support. Appian does not support customer-created customizations or outdated versions of the plug-in.
  • Industry: All Industries
  • Compatible Version(s): 24.2
  • First Released:
  • Last Updated:
  • Cost: Free - Appian Supported
Share
Home » AppMarket » PDF Tools

PDF Tools

Overview

Contains multiple Smart Services and Functions for interacting with PDF Documents.

Key Features & Functionality

Smart Services:

  • Merge PDF - Merges multiple PDF documents into a single document.
  • Extract PDF Pages - Extracts a range of pages from an existing PDF into a new PDF.
  • Fill PDF - Populates the fields of a PDF Form and optionally flattens it disallow further changes.
  • Create PDF Content - Allows text to be added to a PDF with control over the style, position, and angle. An existing PDF can be updated or a new one created from scratch.
  • Convert PDF to Image - Creates an array of images or a multi-page tiff from a PDF.
  • Compress PDF - Compresses the images in the PDF to make it smaller.
  • Un-protect and Copy PDF - Using the document password, create an un-protected copy of a protected PDF.
  • Convert Image to PDF - Creates a PDF starting from one or many images. It also supports multi-page tiff images.
  • Encrypt PDF - Encrypts an existing PDF with a password,
  • Split PDF Pages In Half - Supports spitting individual pdf pages horizontally or vertically with an overlap
  • Rotate PDF - rotate entire pdf by 90, 180, or 270 degrees
  • Convert Txt to PDF - Convert a text to pdf with a choice of font type and size

Functions:

  • Get PDF Metadata - Retrieves metadata on the PDF: page count, title, author, security, encryption, etc.
  • Get PDF Text - Retrieves the text content from a PDF.
  • Get PDF Form Fields - Retrieves the populated form field values of an unflattened PDF.
  • Get PDF Signature Fields - Retrieves the populated signature field values of an unflattened PDF.
  • Get PDF Bookmarks - Retrieves the list of bookmarks and associated page number in the PDF

Anonymous
  • in reply to nanfak

    Yes, this smart service supports insertion of png, jpg, bmp and gif documents into new PDFs.

    The contents of the new PDF is configured by passing in PdfContent object to the smart service. In this object, developers can define PdfSection, and within those an array of PdfText and/or PdfImage can be passed as components. Documents included in the PdfImage instances included in a section's contents will be inserted into that section upon generation.

    For more information on the configuration options for PdfContents, you can review the Data Types section of the documentation included in the plugin download.

  • Can the create PDF content feature be used to insert images into a new PDF file?  We have a requirement to include images in a PDF file dynamically.

  • in reply to namratak0001

    The plugin library merge function is simply merging pages as it doesn't do consolidation.  Essentially, you would have to write your own plugin to achieve this type of functionality using a pdf library that supports merging in the manner you are requesting. 

  • We have blank spaces left in every pdf page ,When I am trying to Merge PDF it is leaving blank spaces we have in every page , 

    Suppose I have 3 pdfs to merge and each pdf content is only half page, when i am merging 3 pdf, it is generating 3 page pdf, rather it should generate 2 page pdf, first page fully occupied and 2nd page half occupied. How can we achieve this.?

  • in reply to joe.keilholz

    Hello Joe,

    Did you find any solution? I am facing the same issue. Please let me know if any.

    Cheers

    Sushil kapoor

  • Hello,

    Is this is compatible with Appian 19.3(cloud), As I tried to upload below error occurred?

    ERROR com.appiancorp.plugins.LoggingPluginEventListener - Failed to enable Plug-in 'PDF Tools' (pdftools) version 2.2.5-SNAPSHOT: 'There was a problem loading the module descriptor: Fill PDF.
    com.appiancorp.suiteapi.common.exceptions.AppianRuntimeException: com.appiancorp.process.admin.IncompatibleSmartServiceRegistrationException: The Smart Service Module was invalid: Illegal attempt to change the data type for smart service pdftools.FillPDFPauseOnError, input or output named PdfFields (APNX-1-4104-005)' 2020-02-10 04:51:10,214 [ajp-nio-8009-exec-3] ERROR com.appiancorp.rest.shared.AppianExceptionMapper - Internal Server Error on REST API invocation. com.appiancorp.exceptions.LocalizedAppianRuntimeException$LocalizedAppianException: Expression evaluation error [evaluation ID = OMPZXXRL] : An error occurred while executing a save: java.util.UnknownFormatConversionException: Conversion = 'D' (APNX-1-4198-019) at com.appiancorp.exceptions.LocalizedAppianRuntimeException.(LocalizedAppianRuntimeException.java:16) at com.appiancorp.sail.UiServiceImpl.reevaluateUi(UiServiceImpl.java:84) at com.appiancorp.sail.UiServiceImpl.reevaluateUi(UiServiceImpl.java:56) at

  • Hello,

    I have a quick question regarding the Compress PDF smart service. The node input "Quality" takes a number, but I'm not sure what that number refers to. Is that a 1 to 10 scale like you see sometimes when creating/saving PDFs with other applications? Thank you!

  • Hi. Thank you for this plugin. We really enjoy it Slight smile

    We are using the smart service "Convert PDF to Image", and the function "Get PDF Text". Both of these, and probably the same for every smart service+function in this plugin, have the risk of throwing an exception when provided with invalid PDFs. I.e. when you have a PDF that is valid to view in documentviewer, but have corrupt metadata. 

    We are using it on arbitrary PDFs and we have a small percentage of PDFs failing to progress through the process. It is currently not possible to perform exception handling in a process model, so it would be nice to see a version of this plugin where exceptions are caught and returned through output parameters. 

  • Hi Chris,

    I have installed PDF tools plug-in in cloud environment, however I was unable to see the function named "Get PDF Form Fields",

    I have checked the source code file named "PDFToolsFunctions.java" for the function but no luck

    Can you please help me on this.

    Cloud version : 19.4

  • Hi Chris 

    We've just updated the PDF Tools plug in to the current version and I note the Admin Console is showing the version as 

    <version>2.2.5-SNAPSHOT</version>

    Is this the correct version of the Plug In for use ? 

    Many thanks

© 2025 Appian. All rights reserved.
We want to hear from you! Submit a review on Gartner or G2.