PDF form field transformation

PDF form field transformation

PDF form field transformation enables you to transform PDF form fields automatically into Docusign tabs, carrying over all of their existing values. The locations of the created tabs will match the locations of the fields from which they were generated.

To transform PDF form fields into Docusign tabs, you need to set the transformPdfFields property on the documents whose fields you want to transform.

PDF fields are converted to Docusign tab types based on the Adobe name of the original field, as shown in the table below:

Docusign will not transform PDF form fields that have the text DocusignIgnoreTransform or eSignIgnoreTransform as part of the name of the PDF form field.

When you convert PDF form fields to Docusign tabs, each tab in the document will be assigned to a single recipient specified by the assignTabsToRecipientId document property (or defaulting to 1). Because the tabs are created dynamically, they cannot be mapped individually to specific signers.

Important: The names of the PDF fields must match the (case-sensitive) tabLabel values of the Docusign tabs to which you wish to transfer their values. For example, to convert a PDF form field to a Docusign List tab, the name of the form field must include eSignList or DocusignList.

If the PDF field names match the Docusign tabLabel, you can set the transformPdfFields property to true for a given document in the documents array like this:

{
  "status": "sent",
  "emailSubject": "PDF Transform Example 2",
  "recipients": {
    "signers": [
      {
        "email": "sally@email.com",
        "name": "Sally Dough",
        "recipientId": "1",
        "tabs": {
          "initialHereTabs": [
            {
              "tabLabel": "DocusignInitialHere1"
            },
            {
              "tabLabel": "DocusignInitialHereOptional1",
              "optional": "true"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  },
  "documents": [
    {
      "documentId": "1",
      "name": "contract.pdf",
      "transformPdfFields": true,
      "assignTabsToRecipientId": "1"
    }
  ]
}

Field properties cheat sheet

The following table shows how field properties are assigned between PDF forms and Docusign tabs (fields).

Next steps

• Tabs
• Fixed positioning
• AutoPlace positioning