Pdf form filling

Skill cxcscmu/SkillLearnBench/skills/b1-one-shot-claude-haiku-4-5/court-form-filling/pdf-form-filling

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Install

npx -y skills add cxcscmu/SkillLearnBench --skill pdf-form-filling

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Fill PDF form fields programmatically using Python libraries like pypdf or pdfrw

SKILL.md

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PDF Form Filling with Python

Overview

This skill covers how to identify and fill form fields in PDF documents, particularly for legal forms like court documents.

Key Libraries

1. PyPDF (pypdf)

Modern, actively maintained library for PDF manipulation
Can read form field names and fill them
Installation: pip install pypdf

2. pdfrw

Lightweight alternative, good for form filling
Installation: pip install pdfrw

Common Workflow

With pypdf:

from pypdf import PdfReader, PdfWriter

# Read the blank form
reader = PdfReader("/path/to/form.pdf")
writer = PdfWriter()

# Get the form fields
fields = reader.get_fields()
print(fields.keys())  # See all available fields

# Create a copy and update fields
for page in reader.pages:
    writer.add_page(page)

# Update fields
writer.update_page_form_field_values(
    writer.pages[0],
    {
        "Field1": "Value1",
        "Field2": "Value2",
    }
)

# Save the result
with open("/path/to/filled.pdf", "wb") as f:
    writer.write(f)

With pdfrw:

from pdfrw import PdfReader, PdfWriter, PdfDict, PdfObject

# Read template
template = PdfReader("/path/to/form.pdf")

# Inspect available fields
for field in template.Root.AcroForm.Fields:
    print(field.T)  # Field name

# Fill fields
for field in template.Root.AcroForm.Fields:
    if field.T == "FieldName":
        field.V = "Field Value"
        field.AP = None  # Clear appearance stream

# Write output
PdfWriter().write("/path/to/filled.pdf", template)

Inspecting Form Fields

from pypdf import PdfReader

reader = PdfReader("form.pdf")
fields = reader.get_fields()

for field_name, field_data in fields.items():
    print(f"{field_name}: {field_data}")

Important Notes

Form field names are case-sensitive
Some PDFs have checkboxes/radio buttons requiring "Yes"/"No" or specific values
Date fields may need specific formatting
Always check field types before filling
Keep a copy of the blank form for reference

California Court Forms Specifics

California court forms often use:

Multi-page layouts with page numbers
Standard field naming conventions
Checkboxes for yes/no selections
Date fields in specific formats
Signature/initial areas (typically left blank)

When filling:

Always read the form first to understand field names
Map case data to appropriate fields
Leave court-filled sections empty (dates, case numbers, judge info)
Preserve form formatting