Adobe Acrobat - Overlay Signature Blocks onto PDF

9/29/2022

[ducttape45]

Good afternoon fellow Freepers. I got a project that I'm working on but I don't know how to make it work.

Basically, I have a PDF file with areas that need text or digital signature blocks added, but I'm looking to find out if there is a way to overlay a PDF with those items in key positions onto the primary PDF file, and have everything line up. As it is right now, I manually add those items one at a time and the time it takes to do 20-30 forms is killing me. There's got to be a way to speed up the process.

If there are any Adobe gurus out there I'd love to hear your advice. Thanks for taking the time to read this.

[ducttape45]

ShadowAce, can you post this to your Ping list? Thanks.

[ShadowAce]

[Boogieman]

An outside service like Docusign can do exactly what you are talking about (laying digital signature tokens over the PDF in whatever position you want). But they are not going to do it for free.

[Sgt_Schultze]

https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/how-to/create-fillable-pdf-forms-creator.html

[AzNASCARfan]

In Acrobat reader there is a stamp option. You can define your custom stamp with your pdf (you might have to make your pdf an image like jpg, I cant remember been along time since I did it)

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

I don’t know how much hard core development experience you have but I’ve played around with various api’s for PDF’s.

Dealing with it at the object level was a non-starter.

Depending on what you are doing, you might convert it to Word or some other easy to manipulate format, then use that object model to add stuff then save it again as a PDF. That way you won’t fry it.

[Pollard]

Been several years since I did it but it’s just a special field and can be signed electronically. I don’t think there’s any way to add it to multiple pdfs in an automated way, especially having it aligned. Think you’re going to have to do one at a time.

[PIF]

Ask they people who made 0bama’s birth certificate ...

[absalom01]

Unless you have a specific need to use Acrobat, you will probably find that Bluebeam is easier to use and has much more functionality.  You can download a free trial version to see how it works.

[monkeyshine]

There might be a way using the watermark feature

[NicoDon]

Acrobat Sign is an offering of Adobe that does the sigs. I would be surprised if they make it easy to do e-sigs without using this product.

I typically prefer docusign to adobe because adobe’s been an abusive semi-monopoly for their products for years.

[reegs]

I’m trying to understand your requirements. Are your form items all located in the same place on each page? If so, you should be able to drag and select multiple form fields/items and copy and paste them onto a new page. Note, you’ll need to double-click on each form field/item to give it a new unique name.

[reegs]

You can even copy and paste multiple form fields into a different PDF file.

[ducttape45]

Pretty much, yes. I’m no wizard when it comes to Adobe though which is why I create this posting. If what you said is true it may be the answer. I’ll pass it along. Thanks.

[ducttape45]

Unfortunately Adobe is all we have to work with.

[minnesota_bound]

I do not know the answer for doing all at once if that is what you want.
I use Foxit PDF Editor. It is $179 perpetual. One time cost.
It is like editing any document.
Cheaper then Adobe. I hate subscription software. It is far less expensive then Adobe.

There is one tutorial for eSign.
https://www.foxit.com/support/tutorial.html?utm_source=client-app&utm_medium=button&utm_campaign=phantom11.2.1

It is much better the Adobe Acrobat.

Top 10 Best Free PDF Editor in 2022 - Free to try for some of them or completely free.
https://pdf.wondershare.com/top-pdf-software/free-pdf-editor.html

[T.B. Yoits]

-Create your signature boxes in PowerPoint. --Include text, lines, or anything you want. --Set the Line of each box to either a color or leave as "No Line".
--Make sure the fill on the boxes are "clear" if anything will be behind them in the PDF.
-Group them all as one object since they're going to be in the same places on each page.
--You may find it helpful to have one "frame" box that's 8 1/2 x 11 to help you resize the image once it's in Adobe Acrobat.
-Copy and paste the grouped object into the PDF. Resize it to fit the page if necessary.
-If the images you brought in block the layers behind them, you may have to reset the transparency property in Adobe Acrobat for the pasted image.
--Signatures in the PDF will be added as the top layer. Once in a while we'd have a signature disappear into a lower layer if someone didn't paste the object in correctly although if the box in PowerPoint had a clear background, it normally wasn't an issue.

You can start with one or two signature boxes to practice before going for the full "layover" image. Unfortunately Adobe doesn't force your pasted image into the page limits so you may have to set your view to 5% to zoom out and grab a corner and resize it into the page.

[Vermont Lt]

There must be tutorials for Adobe templates on You Tube.