Font issue with PDFtk
fonts, pdf, pdftk, truetype
Solution
I was getting the same `java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0` error using `pdftk` to fill forms on an Adobe Acrobat generated PDF. This question is super old, but I couldn't find a consistent answer on stackoverflow or elsewhere so I figured I'd post my fix.
What ended up working for me:
- Opening the PDF in the OS X app Preview
- Clicking into a form field, adding text then deleting that text (so nothing is actually changed)
Saving it
Running the PDF through `pdftk` again
I'm not that familiar with encoding or PDFs in general, but saving the PDF with Preview seems to fix the encoding or at least get it to a place where `pdftk` can work with it. Good luck.
Problem
I'm having difficulties filling in a form using `pdftk` with text fields with true type fonts. - Font files (.ttf) are added to /Library/Fonts (OSX Mavericks) - The form is created with Adobe Acrobat Pro - The form includes normal (non form) text using these fonts - The form text fields also use these fonts - The form can successfully be filled and printed using Adobe Acrobat Pro and even Preview However, `pdftk` throws an error when trying to fill it using the command: ``` pdftk ./my_form.pdf fill_form my_data.fdf output ./the_output.pdf ``` The output is: ``` Unhandled Java Exception in create_output(): java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0 at pdftk.com.lowagie.text.pdf.DocumentFont.fillEncoding(pdftk) at pdftk.com.lowagie.text.pdf.DocumentFont.doType1TT(pdftk) at pdftk.com.lowagie.text.pdf.DocumentFont.<init>(pdftk) at pdftk.com.lowagie.text.pdf.AcroFields.getAppearance(pdftk) at pdftk.com.lowagie.text.pdf.AcroFields.setField(pdftk) at pdftk.com.lowagie.text.pdf.AcroFields.setFields(pdftk) ``` If I change the font of the text inputs to Helvetica, Times Roman or Courier, `pdftk` will successfully create a PDF. Oddly though, Arial and Georgia also throw the same error. I have tried to no avail to embed the fonts in the PDF using Ghostscript as suggested in this question How to repair a PDF file and embed missing fonts. `gs` may have embedded the fonts, but it removes the form fields so the resulting PDF can't feed back into `pdftk`. A working resolution would be greatly appreciated.