auto_formfill

Motivation

I came across a company called Carta Healthcare (www.carta.healthcare) that works with clinicians to support data abstraction for registeries, QI projects, and research. I wanted to try to replicate this task of automating the process of filling up registeries with the same data over and over again.

How to run the script

To run this script, open up the terminal window, change the directory to the directory containing the python3 script using the command cd, and type in the following command : -

python3 <script_filename> <pdfform_filename>'

where,
<script_filename> : refers to the name of the file in which this pythonscript is saved as. In my case it is "main.py"
<pdfform_filename> : refers to the name of the file in which the pdf form is saved as. You may use an absolute path or a relative path.

About the script

This project aims to be able to write a Python script to be able to parse a pdf form file(AcroForm), read the data entered into the respective fields in the pdf, generate JavaScript code to be used to automatically fill up a web form.

I use the following libraries in this script : -

1. PyPDF2 (version 1.26.0)
2. sys
3. pyperclip (version 1.8.0)
4. webbrowser

This script accounts for the following field types in a pdf form : -

1. Text fields
2. Checkboxes/Radio buttons
3. Drop down menu

References

Castiglione, C., 2021. How to Automate Filling In Web Forms with Python - Learn to code in 30 Days. [online] Learn to code in 30 Days. Available at: https://learn.onemonth.com/automate-web-forms-with-python/.

Fossies.org. n.d. openslides: PyPDF2 Namespace Reference - doxygen documentation | Fossies Dox. [online] Available at: https://fossies.org/dox/openslides-2.3-portable/namespacePyPDF2.html [Accessed 15 March 2021].

Garg, A., 2020. How to Extract Data from PDF Forms Using Python. [online] Medium. Available at: https://towardsdatascience.com/how-to-extract-data-from-pdf-forms-using-python-10b5e5f26f70 [Accessed 15 March 2021].

Juviler, J., 2020. What is UTF-8 Encoding? A Guide for Non-Programmers. [online] Blog.hubspot.com. Available at: https://blog.hubspot.com/website/what-is-utf-8#:~:text=UTF%2D8%20is%20an%20encoding,or%20%E2%80%9CUnicode%20Transformation%20Format.%E2%80%9D [Accessed 15 March 2021].

Sweigart, A., 2020. Automate the boring stuff with Python. 2nd ed. San Francisco: No Starch Press.