TX Text Control makes it easy to convert Microsoft Word DOCX documents to PDF, including embedded form fields. Whether your DOCX files contain legacy form fields or content controls, TX Text Control ensures that they are accurately preserved in the exported PDF, either as interactive AcroForms or as a flattened, non-editable form.

MS Word Form Fields

There are two types of form fields in MS Word. Legacy form fields, as the name suggests, are from older versions such as MS Word 97, but remain compatible with newer versions. Content Control Form Fields, on the other hand, represent the modern approach to form fields in MS Word. When you load the RTF, DOC, or DOCX (Office Open XML) document types, both can be imported into the TX Text control.

When loading a document, the ApplicationFieldFormat property determines how a field is imported. There are three main options for importing fields:

• None
  Text fields supported by other applications are not imported as ApplicationFields. Instead, form fields are imported as TX Text Control FormFields.
• MSWord
  Fields that are supported and defined by Microsoft Word are imported as ApplicationFields. The ApplicationFieldTypeNames property allows you to specify which field types to import.
• MSWordTXFormFields
  Fields supported and defined by Microsoft Word are imported asApplicationFields, except for form fields. Form fields, including combo boxes, check boxes, and form text fields, are imported as TX Text Control FormFields.

To load both form fields from MS Word documents, you can use the MSWordTXFormFields setting. The following screenshot shows a sample document with form fields in MS Word:

Importing Form Fields

The following code demonstrates how to load a document with legacy and content control form fields that are automatically converted to form fields.

using TXTextControl;

TXTextControl.LoadSettings loadSettings = new TXTextControl.LoadSettings()
{
    ApplicationFieldFormat = TXTextControl.ApplicationFieldFormat.MSWordTXFormFields
};

using (TXTextControl.ServerTextControl serverTextControl =
  new TXTextControl.ServerTextControl())
{
    serverTextControl.Create();
    serverTextControl.Load("forms.docx",
      TXTextControl.StreamType.WordprocessingML, loadSettings);

    foreach (FormField ff in serverTextControl.FormFields)
    {
        Console.WriteLine(ff.Text);
    }
}

Exporting Form Fields to PDF

Now we can export this document as is to PDF, which will export all the form types it contains to AcroForms. The following code shows how to call the Save method after importing the DOCX document.

using TXTextControl;

TXTextControl.LoadSettings loadSettings = new TXTextControl.LoadSettings()
{
    ApplicationFieldFormat = TXTextControl.ApplicationFieldFormat.MSWordTXFormFields
};

using (TXTextControl.ServerTextControl serverTextControl =
  new TXTextControl.ServerTextControl())
{
    serverTextControl.Create();
    serverTextControl.Load("forms.docx",
      TXTextControl.StreamType.WordprocessingML, loadSettings);
    
    serverTextControl.Save("forms.pdf", TXTextControl.StreamType.AdobePDF);
}

The resulting PDF document contains the form fields as interactive AcroForms. The following screenshot shows the exported PDF document with the form fields:

Flattening Form Fields

When a document is finalized for export and sharing as a PDF, form fields are typically flattened. This process converts the form fields into static text, preventing users from making further changes. TX Text Control provides an overload of the FormFieldCollection.Remove method that does not delete the content and replaces it with plain text. The following extension method flattens all fields in a document.

using TXTextControl;

public static class FormFieldExtender
{
        public static void Flatten(this FormFieldCollection formFields, FormField formField)
        {
                formFields.Remove(formField, true);
        }

        public static void Flatten(this FormFieldCollection formFields)
        {
                int fieldCount = formFields.Count;

                for (int i = 0; i < fieldCount; i++)
                {
                        TextFieldCollectionBase.TextFieldEnumerator fieldEnum =
                          formFields.GetEnumerator();
                        fieldEnum.MoveNext();

                        FormField curField = (FormField)fieldEnum.Current;
                        formFields.Remove(curField, true);
                }
        }
}

The complete code would look like this, along with the loading code above:

using TXTextControl;

TXTextControl.LoadSettings loadSettings = new TXTextControl.LoadSettings()
{
    ApplicationFieldFormat = TXTextControl.ApplicationFieldFormat.MSWordTXFormFields
};

using (TXTextControl.ServerTextControl serverTextControl =
  new TXTextControl.ServerTextControl())
{
    serverTextControl.Create();
    serverTextControl.Load("forms.docx",
      TXTextControl.StreamType.WordprocessingML, loadSettings);

    // Flatten all form fields
    serverTextControl.FormFields.Flatten();

    // Save the document as PDF
    serverTextControl.Save("forms.pdf", TXTextControl.StreamType.AdobePDF);
}

The resulting PDF document contains the form fields as flattened text. The following screenshot shows the exported PDF document with the form fields flattened:

Conclusion

TX Text Control provides a powerful API to importing and exporting form fields from MS Word documents. The ApplicationFieldFormat property allows you to specify how form fields are imported, and the FormFieldCollection.Remove method can be used to flatten form fields before exporting to PDF.