Submitting as PDF from legacy converted files

This page is only applicable to converted files from FormVu versions before the 2024-04 FormVu release, where this behaviour was re-implemented. It does not reflect the current behaviour of FormVu output.

If you are looking at how to submit as a PDF from the latest version, please check out this guide.

Before the 2024-04 release, if you had FormVuAPI disabled and/or the PDF Form used JavaScript to access the submitForm function, form submissions would do the following:

1. Save the current filled out form as a PDF
2. Encode the PDF into a Base64 encoded string
3. Submit the Base64 encoded string as a POST submission using a “pdfdata” key

For example, a raw submission would look similar to this:

pdfdata=VGhpcyBpcyBhbiBleGFtcGxlIEJhc2U2NCBzdHJpbmcsIG5vdCBhbiBleGFtcGxlIFBERiB0aGF0IHlvdSB3b3VsZCBleHBlY3QgdG8gc2Vl

To handle these submissions, the receiving endpoint would be expected to:

1. Receive the POST submission
2. Access the “pdfdata” key
3. Decode the Base64 stream
4. Save the output as a PDF file