How to edit editable pdf using the pdfrw library?

Question

I been doing research on how to edit PDF using Python and i have found this article:
How to Populate Fillable PDF's with Python

However there is a problem once the program runs and you open the PDF the document is not populated only when you click on the tags it shows the data and when you click away it disappears again. This is code that can be found online that someone else has written.

#! /usr/bin/python

import os
import pdfrw


INVOICE_TEMPLATE_PATH = 'invoice_template.pdf'
INVOICE_OUTPUT_PATH = 'invoice.pdf'


ANNOT_KEY = '/Annots'
ANNOT_FIELD_KEY = '/T'
ANNOT_VAL_KEY = '/V'
ANNOT_RECT_KEY = '/Rect'
SUBTYPE_KEY = '/Subtype'
WIDGET_SUBTYPE_KEY = '/Widget'


def write_fillable_pdf(input_pdf_path, output_pdf_path, data_dict):
    template_pdf = pdfrw.PdfReader(input_pdf_path)
    annotations = template_pdf.pages[0][ANNOT_KEY]
    for annotation in annotations:
        if annotation[SUBTYPE_KEY] == WIDGET_SUBTYPE_KEY:
            if annotation[ANNOT_FIELD_KEY]:
                key = annotation[ANNOT_FIELD_KEY][1:-1]
                if key in data_dict.keys():
                    annotation.update(
                        pdfrw.PdfDict(V='{}'.format(data_dict[key]))
                    )
    pdfrw.PdfWriter().write(output_pdf_path, template_pdf)


data_dict = {
   'business_name_1': 'Bostata',
   'customer_name': 'company.io',
   'customer_email': '[email protected]',
   'invoice_number': '102394',
   'send_date': '2018-02-13',
   'due_date': '2018-03-13',
   'note_contents': 'Thank you for your business, Joe',
   'item_1': 'Data consulting services',
   'item_1_quantity': '10 hours',
   'item_1_price': '$200/hr',
   'item_1_amount': '$2000',
   'subtotal': '$2000',
   'tax': '0',
   'discounts': '0',
   'total': '$2000',
   'business_name_2': 'Bostata LLC',
   'business_email_address': '[email protected]',
   'business_phone_number': '(617) 930-4294'
}

if __name__ == '__main__':
    write_fillable_pdf(INVOICE_TEMPLATE_PATH, INVOICE_OUTPUT_PATH, data_dict)

Answer 1

I figure out that if you add NeedAppearances param you will solve your problem:

template_pdf = pdfrw.PdfReader(TEMPLATE_PATH)
template_pdf.Root.AcroForm.update(pdfrw.PdfDict(NeedAppearances=pdfrw.PdfObject('true'))) 

Answer 2

Updating the write function to have keys AP and V fixed the problem for me in preview

pdfrw.PdfDict(AP=data_dict[key], V=data_dict[key])