10 ms·

Show HN: An API for filling out PDF forms

209 points by nathan_f77 9y ago

kapauldo 9y ago
Is this web form to pdf or pre existing fillable pdf to json?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  FormAPI converts any existing PDF into a template that can be filled out via an API call, or via an online form. If you upload a scanned PDF (e.g. plain images), then you can add form fields in the template editor. If you upload a pdf with a fillable form, then we will automatically import all of the existing fields (and the imported fields can then be modified or removed.)
  - reboog711 9y ago
    I'm really confused. Is this intended as a programmer's tool? Or as an end user tool? If I understand it, create an HTML form, submit to server, spit back PDF. This has been built into ColdFusion for about a decade, and it is trivial. [and I assume other server side software can do the same thing]. Aside from that, the bulk of the PDF Forms I download these days can already be filled out with Acrobat. I'm not sure what benefit you're offering me in time savings.
    - nathan_f77 9y ago
      This is a tool for programmers who need to fill out a lot of PDFs automatically. For example, a freelancing service could use FormAPI to fill out W-9 forms for contractors. Or if I built a service for end-users to fill out and sign PDFs, I would create a separate website and use FormAPI to generate the PDFs. (I don't think I will do this, though.) You're right that if you just need to fill in a single form, then there are easier ways to do that. (Even just using the Preview app on Mac).
      - reboog711 9y ago
        If I download a W9 from the IRS web site I can fill it out directly using Acrobat. I'm pretty sure the free reader is all you need. I guess I'm not understanding the niche you fill. Good luck with it, though.
nathan_f77 9y ago
Hi HN! I started FormAPI because I've been living in Southeast Asia for the last few years, and I've had to fill in a lot of visa application and extension forms. I want to build a service where you can fill in visa forms online, so I built FormAPI as the first step towards that project. I also used to work at Gusto (a payroll company), and we had to fill out a lot of tax forms, which took a lot of work. I know this is something that many financial and legal startups have to do, so hopefully FormAPI can make this process a lot easier. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback!
- bitL 9y ago
  Very cool! I had a similar idea, taking a smartphone hovering over a form, automatically detecting form type using CNNs, performing OCR and filling in some example data showing how the form has to be correctly filled. There seems to be quite a lot of potential in business for this ;-)
- Eridrus 9y ago
  IMO integrating this into a system that already knows these things about a user would be super powerful. Obviously you can start with the most basic things like name, address, birthdate, etc, but to the extent that you can capture data every time a user fills out a form it becomes akin to a field linking problem that you can generalize across users. Obviously the privacy folks here will hate this idea, but a system that could fill out forms for you because it already knows most of the structured data about you would be amazing.
  - nathan_f77 9y ago
    That's what I would like to do for the immigration service that I'm planning to build on top of FormAPI. For example, every time you visit Vietnam, you have to fill out this visa application form: https://app.formapi.io/templates/c59fc7c0cc4df684a13cf4d04e60b729/form https://app.formapi.io/templates/c59fc7c0cc4df684a13cf4d04e6... (That's a working example.) I would love to be able to save my details and automatically fill out most of the fields in these forms.
  - solatic 9y ago
jonaldomo 9y ago
Looks good. I think some real life use cases would help on the sales site. So the use case is you have a company that only accepts PDFs as an input and you have a digital data set that you need to get each individual row into one PDF? How do you handle signatures?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  Thanks! Totally agree, there's a lot of room for improvement on the landing page. That use case sounds right. I've mainly been thinking about tax and immigration forms, or filling out financial and legal documents, etc. There's no special field type for signatures at the moment, but you can upload a signature image, or use a text field with a handwriting font (Dancing Script [1]). I will probably add the signature_pad [2] library to the online forms in the near future, and will add a special "signature" type. There might also be a new flow where you can request a signature via the API, and we'll send an email to the person who needs to sign the document. (I actually just need to get a few more customers first, so that I'm building something that people need.) [1] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script [2] https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad
- stult 9y ago
  Not OP but one use case is charitable grants. I made an app for a homeless agency my girlfriend used to work at for automatically filling out PDFs. They spent an inordinate amount of time filling out grant application PDFs, most of which requested essentially the same info. We made a simple WPF app that let them tag each field on the PDF as a particular info type (e.g. address, or address line 1, or statement of organization's purpose) then click a button to autofill. They keep all the data in a single underlying spreadsheet for convenience and just update that, rather than treating each of their hundreds of applications as bespoke. Also I work at an accounting firm and we have a home grown solution that does precisely this for all of the standard IRS forms we fill out. For a larger firm like mine, we can afford to have someone code the solution in house, but for smaller firms or for in-house accounting departments, this could be worthwhile, depending on the price point.
tyingq 9y ago
Would be interested to hear a bit about the internals. Which PDF libraries you tried, which one you ended up using, why, etc.
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  I built the site using Ruby on Rails, and ended up trying all the PDF libraries I could find. In the end I had to use six different libraries and tools to solve various problems with parsing or transforming PDFs. The libraries I use are: pdf-reader [1], prawn [2], prawn-templates [3], origami [4], qpdf [5], and pdftk [6]. There's a new PDF library for Ruby called hexapdf [7], and it looks really promising. I think it might even be able to replace all six of these libraries, but it's released under the AGPL license, and commercial licenses are not available yet. [1] https://github.com/yob/pdf-reader https://github.com/yob/pdf-reader [2] https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn [3] https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn-templates https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn-templates [4] https://github.com/gdelugre/origami https://github.com/gdelugre/origami [5] http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/ http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/ [6] https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ [7] https://hexapdf.gettalong.org/ https://hexapdf.gettalong.org/
jaequery 9y ago
after you fill out the form, does this return back a PDF to you with fields filled out?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  Yes, when you submit the form, we fill out the fields, and then you can download the generated PDF.
  - jaequery 9y ago
    will the generated PDF be in the original format of the PDF?
    - nathan_f77 9y ago
      Yes, we return the original PDF with the fields filled out. However, for PDFs with "fillable forms", we remove the forms, so the PDF is no longer editable.
gowan 9y ago
this is an interesting idea. i like how it is declarative. acrobat FDF[1] and Apache PDFBox[2] provide something similar but are not declarative. i'd be interested in seeing an approach with mozilla/pdf.js ... though i'm not sure how usable it would be. [1] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/fdftoolkit.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/fdftoolkit.html [2] https://pdfbox.apache.org/ https://pdfbox.apache.org/
alistproducer2 9y ago
To the OP: Can I ask what your process was? A project like this obviously takes a lot of time. How certain were you that you had a product people wanted before embarking on the dev?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  I mentioned this in another comment, but I've had to fill in a lot of visa application and extension forms while living in Southeast Asia. I wanted to make that process easier, so this was the first step towards that goal. I've also worked at companies where we built something similar in-house. So while this is a very niche product, I know there's a least a few developers out there who may find it useful. Building something like this is also a great way to find new problems to solve. I think even if it's a niche idea or something you're not sure about, it's better to start building something than to wait for the perfect idea.
  - alistproducer2 9y ago
    Thanks for sharing that. I think using one's job to identify potential markets is a great idea.
efitz 9y ago
Most forms contain personally identifiable information. Some contain extremely sensitive information, for example the kinds of forms that you describe-visas, etc.- contain national ID numbers and so forth. The idea of providing this to a third party web site scares the daylights out of me. Is it possible for me to obtain the source code on Github and host it myself?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  I totally agree, these forms can contain very sensitive information. Actually there is some information that is too sensitive - We are not currently PCI DSS Certified or HIPAA compliant, so we cannot handle credit card details or protected health information. We are very serious about protecting PII. One of the ways we achieve that is by using battle-tested frameworks and libraries with the default settings (Rails and devise), and not writing our own code for crypto and security. By default, we delete generated PDFs and any associated data after 7 days. This can be configured in the template settings [1], so you can make the retention period much shorter. You can also immediately delete any submitted data by making an API request [2]. (Disclaimer: Data may be present in our automated database backups for up to 2 weeks.) Finally, FormAPI is not open source, but we can provide a license for a self-hosted installation. For enterprise plans and on-site hosting, please contact: enterprise@formapi.io [1] https://formapi.io/docs/template_editor/settings.html#expire-submissions https://formapi.io/docs/template_editor/settings.html#expire... [2] https://formapi.io/docs/api/expire_submission.html https://formapi.io/docs/api/expire_submission.html
  - blowski 9y ago
    > We are very serious about protecting PII. Problem is, everyone (from Equifax to Yahoo) says that. If I can't trust a huge multi-billion corporate, I would certainly be nervous about trusting a very new startup with much more than my email address.
    - nathan_f77 9y ago
      Yes, that is very true. I am planning to move my hosting to Aptible [1], and will become PCI certified and HIPAA compliant. If anyone is interested in FormAPI, but requires PCI certification and HIPAA compliance, please send an email to compliance@formapi.io. We'll let you know when we are ready. You can also send an email to enterprise@formapi.io to inquire about on-site hosting. [1] https://www.aptible.com/ https://www.aptible.com/
taariqlewis 9y ago
How does this handle user signatures?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  There is currently no signature support on the online forms, but that's something I would like to add soon. When generating a PDF via an API request, you can add an image field, and upload your user's signature as an image. You could also create a faux signature by using a text field with a handwriting font (The Dancing Script [1] font is available.) This is a tool for developers to fill out PDFs, so in your own application you could use something like the signature_pad library [2], and then pass the signature images to FormAPI. [1] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script [2] https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad
rokhayakebe 9y ago
Emailed you Nat (when you get a chance).
mariusz331 9y ago
Hey Nathan! Great to see another product in the PDF space. I see a few similarities to PDF Otter[0] and was wondering if you drew any inspiration from it. [0] https://www.pdfotter.com https://www.pdfotter.com
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  Hey, I did come across PDF Otter a few weeks ago when I found your Show HN post [1]. There was some great feedback in the comments. I started building FormAPI a few months ago, and should have done more market research! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805750
  - mariusz331 9y ago
    No worries! Feel free to email me if you want to collaborate: Mariusz at PDF Otter dot com
Tijdreiziger 9y ago
Why exactly is this a web API? Don't get me wrong, it's great work, but it seems like something that would be much better suited to a library.
- ateesdalejr 9y ago
  He can make money off of a web API. A library would be hard to keep closed source.
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  I think even if you built something like FormAPI internally, it's great to run it as a self-contained service with a job queue that can retry failed jobs. For example, if an image download fails, we will keep retrying the job, and then will post a webhook once the PDF is processed. You also don't need to worry about installing a myriad of PDF and image processing libraries, and you just make a single API call to generate your PDF.
ocrcustomserver 9y ago
Cool project! Shameless plug: if you need the opposite, i.e. getting text/structured data out of filled PDF forms (or any kind of PDF document), feel free to contact me.
WhitneyLand 9y ago
This api has inspired this idea: Ever notice most new health care provider visits still require a ton of paper work? Use mobile app to take a picture of their arbitrary form, use OpenCV to interpret it as as real data structure, autofill it from a personal database, and print it out on one of those tiny portable printers, and hand it back to them. To try and make it viral: When used to process a form, the app also generates a web site for that office. Then anyone can search for dr. lowtech’s office and use the site to form and print them at home before coming in. Each printed form would have a header/footer asking the provider to register on the site, at which point it could become an official entry point into the system and leverage other efficiencies. Some hipaa stuff applies but nothing insurmountable. I guess everyone else here also has 10 ideas a day pop into their head for a startup. So on to the next one...
fetch1 9y ago
This looks really good and the demo is really effective. Best of luck to you! Was DocRaptor a big influence on how you priced it? Shameless plug: I've also recently been working with PDFs - a PDF template creator and API [0] - but I have a different use case in mind. [0] https://fetchpdf.com https://fetchpdf.com
- konschubert 9y ago
  Hi I like this. Are you aware of https://www.docmosis.com/ https://www.docmosis.com/ ? How do you compare to them?
  - fetch1 9y ago
    I wasn't aware of them, no. They're definitely more established and have more features. The goal of FetchPDF was to let web applications give their users a way to create and edit PDF templates in the browser. e.g. to customise system templates for invoices, certificates etc. I still have a lot of work to do to, it would seem.
    - konschubert 9y ago
      Don't let it discourage you. They have their own set of problems, the first one being that they use libre office for templates, a piece of software that not everybody likes or is familiar with. I've been a happy customer of docmosis, but I'm still interested in using your service if it provides easier templating.
      - fetch1 9y ago
        Please feel free to sign up for the trial. Send through an email to the support email address and I'll upgrade the trial and set an API key without you needing to put in billing details. But be warned - it's still in MVP stage and may disappoint! (It also means that it's very receptive to feedback :)
        9y ago
Animats 9y ago
From the terms: FormAPI is not PCI DSS Certified or HIPAA compliant. You understand that the technical processing and transmission of the Service, including your Content, may be transferred unencrypted and involve (a) transmissions over various networks; and (b) changes to conform and adapt to technical requirements of connecting networks or devices. Unfortunately, this is a service that sees the data being entered on the form. If it processed a blank PDF form and sent back something you ran locally to generate a filled-in form, that would be great. But as a service, it sees too much user data.
- nolite 9y ago
  agree... this looks amazing, but no way I could ever use it... can't send user data to a service like this... DOA...
  - rublev 9y ago
    What's with the 3 ellipses? A few of my friends text that way and it feels awkward.
    - nolite 9y ago
      It’s standard for unexplicit continuation of a thought...
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - rublev 9y ago
        I honestly can't read this without visualizing someone rolling their eyes after every thought while finishing their sentence sarcastically with a vocal fry lol.
    - sushid 9y ago
      Just pointing it out so please don't shoot the messenger, but I've noticed that a lot of people from China will text like this. FWIW I don't think the ellipses have the same awkward meaning that's conveyed in Western conversations.
plicense 9y ago
Fantastic work! The UI looks really slick! How long have you been working on this project?
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  Thanks! I've been working on this for about 2 months.
asteinbr 9y ago
There exists also php-pdftk (https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk). Great software for filling pdf forms.
steveneo 9y ago
I like this service as well: https://www.platoforms.com https://www.platoforms.com.
jv22222 9y ago
@nathan_f77: That's an unusually large plans and pricing page: https://formapi.io/sign_up https://formapi.io/sign_up I'm not saying that it's bad, but I think it's strongly worth your while A/B testing that idea because it's quite granular. You may find that with just 3 plans you would leave less money on the table over time. (Of course you would also have a "call for enterprise options" link.) Another option is (and I did this with pluggio) is to let, say, 50 people in for a very low special price and then observe exactly how many api calls they make. Then based of that data work out your usage bands and magic levers. Also, I note your only magic lever is usage but I bet there are other levers you can use to get people from one plan to another. Anyway, I hope this is useful feedback! Great job on the site :)
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  Thanks for the great feedback! We definitely need to test various pricing and sign up pages. And yes, we will be watching how our customers use the service, and have already discovered a lot of things that we need to improve.
bubso 9y ago
Hey guys, Not trying to plug our co but its totally relevant here...we built a field detection algorithm to find the fields in any form. So you can drag n drop your doc and start filling it in and sign it within a couple of seconds. Feel free to check it out. Thanks guys! https://www.paperjet.com/ https://www.paperjet.com/
- ocrcustomserver 9y ago
  This is great! How do you detect the fields? Are you using image processing?
rublev 9y ago
I've got formy.io if you want it. Was building something similar way back.
chromano 9y ago
Will there be an API sometime in the future? Also will it be possible to whitelabel the template editor and/or make it embeddable?

209 points by nathan_f77 9y ago

kapauldo 9y ago

Is this web form to pdf or pre existing fillable pdf to json?

nathan_f77 9y ago
FormAPI converts any existing PDF into a template that can be filled out via an API call, or via an online form. If you upload a scanned PDF (e.g. plain images), then you can add form fields in the template editor. If you upload a pdf with a fillable form, then we will automatically import all of the existing fields (and the imported fields can then be modified or removed.)
- reboog711 9y ago
  I'm really confused. Is this intended as a programmer's tool? Or as an end user tool? If I understand it, create an HTML form, submit to server, spit back PDF. This has been built into ColdFusion for about a decade, and it is trivial. [and I assume other server side software can do the same thing]. Aside from that, the bulk of the PDF Forms I download these days can already be filled out with Acrobat. I'm not sure what benefit you're offering me in time savings.
  - nathan_f77 9y ago
    This is a tool for programmers who need to fill out a lot of PDFs automatically. For example, a freelancing service could use FormAPI to fill out W-9 forms for contractors. Or if I built a service for end-users to fill out and sign PDFs, I would create a separate website and use FormAPI to generate the PDFs. (I don't think I will do this, though.) You're right that if you just need to fill in a single form, then there are easier ways to do that. (Even just using the Preview app on Mac).
    - reboog711 9y ago
      If I download a W9 from the IRS web site I can fill it out directly using Acrobat. I'm pretty sure the free reader is all you need. I guess I'm not understanding the niche you fill. Good luck with it, though.

nathan_f77 9y ago

Hi HN! I started FormAPI because I've been living in Southeast Asia for the last few years, and I've had to fill in a lot of visa application and extension forms. I want to build a service where you can fill in visa forms online, so I built FormAPI as the first step towards that project. I also used to work at Gusto (a payroll company), and we had to fill out a lot of tax forms, which took a lot of work. I know this is something that many financial and legal startups have to do, so hopefully FormAPI can make this process a lot easier. Let me know if you have any questions or feedback!

bitL 9y ago
Very cool! I had a similar idea, taking a smartphone hovering over a form, automatically detecting form type using CNNs, performing OCR and filling in some example data showing how the form has to be correctly filled. There seems to be quite a lot of potential in business for this ;-)
Eridrus 9y ago
IMO integrating this into a system that already knows these things about a user would be super powerful. Obviously you can start with the most basic things like name, address, birthdate, etc, but to the extent that you can capture data every time a user fills out a form it becomes akin to a field linking problem that you can generalize across users. Obviously the privacy folks here will hate this idea, but a system that could fill out forms for you because it already knows most of the structured data about you would be amazing.
- nathan_f77 9y ago
  That's what I would like to do for the immigration service that I'm planning to build on top of FormAPI. For example, every time you visit Vietnam, you have to fill out this visa application form: https://app.formapi.io/templates/c59fc7c0cc4df684a13cf4d04e60b729/form https://app.formapi.io/templates/c59fc7c0cc4df684a13cf4d04e6... (That's a working example.) I would love to be able to save my details and automatically fill out most of the fields in these forms.
- solatic 9y ago

jonaldomo 9y ago

Looks good. I think some real life use cases would help on the sales site. So the use case is you have a company that only accepts PDFs as an input and you have a digital data set that you need to get each individual row into one PDF? How do you handle signatures?

nathan_f77 9y ago
Thanks! Totally agree, there's a lot of room for improvement on the landing page. That use case sounds right. I've mainly been thinking about tax and immigration forms, or filling out financial and legal documents, etc. There's no special field type for signatures at the moment, but you can upload a signature image, or use a text field with a handwriting font (Dancing Script [1]). I will probably add the signature_pad [2] library to the online forms in the near future, and will add a special "signature" type. There might also be a new flow where you can request a signature via the API, and we'll send an email to the person who needs to sign the document. (I actually just need to get a few more customers first, so that I'm building something that people need.) [1] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script [2] https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad
stult 9y ago
Not OP but one use case is charitable grants. I made an app for a homeless agency my girlfriend used to work at for automatically filling out PDFs. They spent an inordinate amount of time filling out grant application PDFs, most of which requested essentially the same info. We made a simple WPF app that let them tag each field on the PDF as a particular info type (e.g. address, or address line 1, or statement of organization's purpose) then click a button to autofill. They keep all the data in a single underlying spreadsheet for convenience and just update that, rather than treating each of their hundreds of applications as bespoke. Also I work at an accounting firm and we have a home grown solution that does precisely this for all of the standard IRS forms we fill out. For a larger firm like mine, we can afford to have someone code the solution in house, but for smaller firms or for in-house accounting departments, this could be worthwhile, depending on the price point.

tyingq 9y ago

Would be interested to hear a bit about the internals. Which PDF libraries you tried, which one you ended up using, why, etc.

nathan_f77 9y ago
I built the site using Ruby on Rails, and ended up trying all the PDF libraries I could find. In the end I had to use six different libraries and tools to solve various problems with parsing or transforming PDFs. The libraries I use are: pdf-reader [1], prawn [2], prawn-templates [3], origami [4], qpdf [5], and pdftk [6]. There's a new PDF library for Ruby called hexapdf [7], and it looks really promising. I think it might even be able to replace all six of these libraries, but it's released under the AGPL license, and commercial licenses are not available yet. [1] https://github.com/yob/pdf-reader https://github.com/yob/pdf-reader [2] https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn [3] https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn-templates https://github.com/prawnpdf/prawn-templates [4] https://github.com/gdelugre/origami https://github.com/gdelugre/origami [5] http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/ http://qpdf.sourceforge.net/ [6] https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ https://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/ [7] https://hexapdf.gettalong.org/ https://hexapdf.gettalong.org/

jaequery 9y ago

after you fill out the form, does this return back a PDF to you with fields filled out?

nathan_f77 9y ago
Yes, when you submit the form, we fill out the fields, and then you can download the generated PDF.
- jaequery 9y ago
  will the generated PDF be in the original format of the PDF?
  - nathan_f77 9y ago
    Yes, we return the original PDF with the fields filled out. However, for PDFs with "fillable forms", we remove the forms, so the PDF is no longer editable.

gowan 9y ago

this is an interesting idea. i like how it is declarative. acrobat FDF[1] and Apache PDFBox[2] provide something similar but are not declarative. i'd be interested in seeing an approach with mozilla/pdf.js ... though i'm not sure how usable it would be. [1] http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/fdftoolkit.html http://www.adobe.com/devnet/acrobat/fdftoolkit.html [2] https://pdfbox.apache.org/ https://pdfbox.apache.org/

alistproducer2 9y ago

To the OP: Can I ask what your process was? A project like this obviously takes a lot of time. How certain were you that you had a product people wanted before embarking on the dev?

nathan_f77 9y ago
I mentioned this in another comment, but I've had to fill in a lot of visa application and extension forms while living in Southeast Asia. I wanted to make that process easier, so this was the first step towards that goal. I've also worked at companies where we built something similar in-house. So while this is a very niche product, I know there's a least a few developers out there who may find it useful. Building something like this is also a great way to find new problems to solve. I think even if it's a niche idea or something you're not sure about, it's better to start building something than to wait for the perfect idea.
- alistproducer2 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing that. I think using one's job to identify potential markets is a great idea.

efitz 9y ago

Most forms contain personally identifiable information. Some contain extremely sensitive information, for example the kinds of forms that you describe-visas, etc.- contain national ID numbers and so forth. The idea of providing this to a third party web site scares the daylights out of me. Is it possible for me to obtain the source code on Github and host it myself?

nathan_f77 9y ago
I totally agree, these forms can contain very sensitive information. Actually there is some information that is too sensitive - We are not currently PCI DSS Certified or HIPAA compliant, so we cannot handle credit card details or protected health information. We are very serious about protecting PII. One of the ways we achieve that is by using battle-tested frameworks and libraries with the default settings (Rails and devise), and not writing our own code for crypto and security. By default, we delete generated PDFs and any associated data after 7 days. This can be configured in the template settings [1], so you can make the retention period much shorter. You can also immediately delete any submitted data by making an API request [2]. (Disclaimer: Data may be present in our automated database backups for up to 2 weeks.) Finally, FormAPI is not open source, but we can provide a license for a self-hosted installation. For enterprise plans and on-site hosting, please contact: enterprise@formapi.io [1] https://formapi.io/docs/template_editor/settings.html#expire-submissions https://formapi.io/docs/template_editor/settings.html#expire... [2] https://formapi.io/docs/api/expire_submission.html https://formapi.io/docs/api/expire_submission.html
- blowski 9y ago
  > We are very serious about protecting PII. Problem is, everyone (from Equifax to Yahoo) says that. If I can't trust a huge multi-billion corporate, I would certainly be nervous about trusting a very new startup with much more than my email address.
  - nathan_f77 9y ago
    Yes, that is very true. I am planning to move my hosting to Aptible [1], and will become PCI certified and HIPAA compliant. If anyone is interested in FormAPI, but requires PCI certification and HIPAA compliance, please send an email to compliance@formapi.io. We'll let you know when we are ready. You can also send an email to enterprise@formapi.io to inquire about on-site hosting. [1] https://www.aptible.com/ https://www.aptible.com/

taariqlewis 9y ago

How does this handle user signatures?

nathan_f77 9y ago
There is currently no signature support on the online forms, but that's something I would like to add soon. When generating a PDF via an API request, you can add an image field, and upload your user's signature as an image. You could also create a faux signature by using a text field with a handwriting font (The Dancing Script [1] font is available.) This is a tool for developers to fill out PDFs, so in your own application you could use something like the signature_pad library [2], and then pass the signature images to FormAPI. [1] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Dancing+Script [2] https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad https://github.com/szimek/signature_pad

rokhayakebe 9y ago

Emailed you Nat (when you get a chance).

mariusz331 9y ago

Hey Nathan! Great to see another product in the PDF space. I see a few similarities to PDF Otter[0] and was wondering if you drew any inspiration from it. [0] https://www.pdfotter.com https://www.pdfotter.com

nathan_f77 9y ago
Hey, I did come across PDF Otter a few weeks ago when I found your Show HN post [1]. There was some great feedback in the comments. I started building FormAPI a few months ago, and should have done more market research! [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805750
- mariusz331 9y ago
  No worries! Feel free to email me if you want to collaborate: Mariusz at PDF Otter dot com

Tijdreiziger 9y ago

Why exactly is this a web API? Don't get me wrong, it's great work, but it seems like something that would be much better suited to a library.

ateesdalejr 9y ago
He can make money off of a web API. A library would be hard to keep closed source.
nathan_f77 9y ago
I think even if you built something like FormAPI internally, it's great to run it as a self-contained service with a job queue that can retry failed jobs. For example, if an image download fails, we will keep retrying the job, and then will post a webhook once the PDF is processed. You also don't need to worry about installing a myriad of PDF and image processing libraries, and you just make a single API call to generate your PDF.

ocrcustomserver 9y ago

Cool project! Shameless plug: if you need the opposite, i.e. getting text/structured data out of filled PDF forms (or any kind of PDF document), feel free to contact me.

WhitneyLand 9y ago

This api has inspired this idea: Ever notice most new health care provider visits still require a ton of paper work? Use mobile app to take a picture of their arbitrary form, use OpenCV to interpret it as as real data structure, autofill it from a personal database, and print it out on one of those tiny portable printers, and hand it back to them. To try and make it viral: When used to process a form, the app also generates a web site for that office. Then anyone can search for dr. lowtech’s office and use the site to form and print them at home before coming in. Each printed form would have a header/footer asking the provider to register on the site, at which point it could become an official entry point into the system and leverage other efficiencies. Some hipaa stuff applies but nothing insurmountable. I guess everyone else here also has 10 ideas a day pop into their head for a startup. So on to the next one...

fetch1 9y ago

This looks really good and the demo is really effective. Best of luck to you! Was DocRaptor a big influence on how you priced it? Shameless plug: I've also recently been working with PDFs - a PDF template creator and API [0] - but I have a different use case in mind. [0] https://fetchpdf.com https://fetchpdf.com

konschubert 9y ago
Hi I like this. Are you aware of https://www.docmosis.com/ https://www.docmosis.com/ ? How do you compare to them?
- fetch1 9y ago
  I wasn't aware of them, no. They're definitely more established and have more features. The goal of FetchPDF was to let web applications give their users a way to create and edit PDF templates in the browser. e.g. to customise system templates for invoices, certificates etc. I still have a lot of work to do to, it would seem.
  - konschubert 9y ago
    Don't let it discourage you. They have their own set of problems, the first one being that they use libre office for templates, a piece of software that not everybody likes or is familiar with. I've been a happy customer of docmosis, but I'm still interested in using your service if it provides easier templating.
    - fetch1 9y ago
      Please feel free to sign up for the trial. Send through an email to the support email address and I'll upgrade the trial and set an API key without you needing to put in billing details. But be warned - it's still in MVP stage and may disappoint! (It also means that it's very receptive to feedback :)
      - 9y ago

Animats 9y ago

From the terms: FormAPI is not PCI DSS Certified or HIPAA compliant. You understand that the technical processing and transmission of the Service, including your Content, may be transferred unencrypted and involve (a) transmissions over various networks; and (b) changes to conform and adapt to technical requirements of connecting networks or devices. Unfortunately, this is a service that sees the data being entered on the form. If it processed a blank PDF form and sent back something you ran locally to generate a filled-in form, that would be great. But as a service, it sees too much user data.

nolite 9y ago
agree... this looks amazing, but no way I could ever use it... can't send user data to a service like this... DOA...
- rublev 9y ago
  What's with the 3 ellipses? A few of my friends text that way and it feels awkward.
  - nolite 9y ago
    It’s standard for unexplicit continuation of a thought...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - rublev 9y ago
      I honestly can't read this without visualizing someone rolling their eyes after every thought while finishing their sentence sarcastically with a vocal fry lol.
  - sushid 9y ago
    Just pointing it out so please don't shoot the messenger, but I've noticed that a lot of people from China will text like this. FWIW I don't think the ellipses have the same awkward meaning that's conveyed in Western conversations.

plicense 9y ago

Fantastic work! The UI looks really slick! How long have you been working on this project?

nathan_f77 9y ago
Thanks! I've been working on this for about 2 months.

asteinbr 9y ago

There exists also php-pdftk (https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk https://github.com/mikehaertl/php-pdftk). Great software for filling pdf forms.

steveneo 9y ago

I like this service as well: https://www.platoforms.com https://www.platoforms.com.

jv22222 9y ago

@nathan_f77: That's an unusually large plans and pricing page: https://formapi.io/sign_up https://formapi.io/sign_up I'm not saying that it's bad, but I think it's strongly worth your while A/B testing that idea because it's quite granular. You may find that with just 3 plans you would leave less money on the table over time. (Of course you would also have a "call for enterprise options" link.) Another option is (and I did this with pluggio) is to let, say, 50 people in for a very low special price and then observe exactly how many api calls they make. Then based of that data work out your usage bands and magic levers. Also, I note your only magic lever is usage but I bet there are other levers you can use to get people from one plan to another. Anyway, I hope this is useful feedback! Great job on the site :)

nathan_f77 9y ago
Thanks for the great feedback! We definitely need to test various pricing and sign up pages. And yes, we will be watching how our customers use the service, and have already discovered a lot of things that we need to improve.

bubso 9y ago

Hey guys, Not trying to plug our co but its totally relevant here...we built a field detection algorithm to find the fields in any form. So you can drag n drop your doc and start filling it in and sign it within a couple of seconds. Feel free to check it out. Thanks guys! https://www.paperjet.com/ https://www.paperjet.com/

ocrcustomserver 9y ago
This is great! How do you detect the fields? Are you using image processing?

rublev 9y ago

I've got formy.io if you want it. Was building something similar way back.

chromano 9y ago

Will there be an API sometime in the future? Also will it be possible to whitelabel the template editor and/or make it embeddable?