Creating a custom dynamic stamp in Acrobat 9

Hi judyhammer,

This is indeed both a popular and advanced topic. Here are two tutorials from the Learning Center on custom dynamic stamps that should be helpful-

Custom Dynamic Stamps
Dynamic Stamp SecretsIf you search this site for "Custom Dynamic Stamp" it returns a long list of forum threads with helpful information on a large variety of questions about this subject-
http://acrobatusers.com/search/google/custom%20dynamic%20stamp?query=custom%20dynamic%20stamp&cx=010702214422959725198%3Amrw4k197ftq&cof=FORID%3A11&sitesearch=#1248My company produced a video that shows the kinds of things you can include in a custom stamp and different use cases. It can be viewed at-
Stamps Gone Wild!Depending on the complexity of your stamp, it can be a matter of copying and pasting, or it can involve some heavy-duty scripting. The resources listed above should give you an idea of what category your stamp falls into.

Hope this helps,

Dimitri
www.pdfscripting.com
www.windjack.com

Thanks! But I need to create this stamp in Acrobat 9. It just needs to update the date and time along with the user's name. Your links speak mainly to Acrobat 8 and earlier, which I've already looked through. So I'm guessing I need more advanced scripting. Can you direct me to that?

Thank you so much!

The basics of how the stamp works internally and how to find the stamps location has not changed much since version 5.0. Except the you no longer need to make a PDF template.

The items located at the links, used the most current version of Acrobat that was available at the time the document or video was created.

Hi judyhammer,

Did you follow the steps in those tutorials and have a problem getting it to work in Acrobat 9? Stamps should work in Acrobat 9 much the same as in Acrobat 8- not much changed for stamps between those versions.


Hope this helps,

Dimitri
www.pdfscripting.com
www.windjack.com

Hi Dimitri,

I've tried it twice but I'll go one more round using your links. Thanks for the quick responses!

Hi, I am new to this as well. I am trying to make a simple stamp and was following the instructions (from Dimitri's first link abouve) up to Step 4. I dont have a plug-ins folder in my acrobat folder (not sure if this is just a version 9 thing) so i am now stuck. I have a pdf file for the stamp but am not sure how to add the dynamic part to it (i know nothing about programming). I am using Acrobat Pro version 9.

Any help would be appreciated

Stuart

There is a lower level folder and the name is dependent upon the Operating System for Windows the application level folder is "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Acrobat\plug_ins\Annotations\Stamps\ENU\", and for the user level folder it is "C:\Documents and Settings\[userid]\Application Data\Adobe\Acrobat\9.0\Stamps", where [userid] is the login id for the user.

You can also find the folder using the JavaScript Debugging console and the following code:

// get application level stamps folder
app.getPath("app", "stamps");

/// get the user level stamps folder
app.getPath("user", "stamps");

Unless your installation excluded the stamps the application level folder will be present. The user folder may not appear until you add a custom user stamp.

The above code is independent of the OS.

Thanks George, I dug a bit and found it, on the mac os it is a self contained file (you have to right click the application and view its hidden contents).

Hmmm, i think i will leave this to the programmers, i cant get my name to add automatically or to have the date and time dynamic. Not sure what i am doing, i was hoping it would be easier.

In case anyone can help with the code all i am after is 3 separate dynamic fields

1. persons name (first last)
2. date (e.g.November 15, 2011)
3. time (e.g. 4:55 pm)

This is what i pasted in for the code for each box currently (greek to me!!)

1.
event.value = (new Date()).toString();
AFDate_FormatEx("h:MM tt, mmm dd, yyyy");
event.value = "By " + ((!identity.name || identity.loginName != (event.source.source || this).Collab.user) ? (event.source.source || this).Collab.user : identity.name)
+ " at " + event.value;

2.
event.value = (new Date()).toString();
AFDate_FormatEx("mmmm dd, yyyy");


3.
event.value = (new Date()).toString();
AFDate_FormatEx("h:MM tt");

Does anyone know how to create a simple custom dynamic stamp in Acrobat X Pro for Mac? I just want to create a simple stamp that says "Received" and then the current date and time.... on a Mac, not a Windows PC.

I've been thru all the steps and links above and, since I'm not a programmer, I don't understand. Can someone please tell me where the stamp files are on a Mac?

Does not Acrobat X come with a dynamic Received stamp?

Yessir, it does. However, I would like to redesign that rather generic-looking stamp with something that also displays my company logo. Since my last post, I have spent several hours finally learning the following:

1. How to design a custom graphic and import it into my custom stamps. I have created several custom stamps, but have no idea where they are stored.
2. How to find the Dynamic.pdf document on my Mac - Applications>Adobe Acrobat X Pro>control-click on Adobe Acrobat Pro folder>Show Package Contents>Built-in>Comments.acroplugin>Stamps>ENU>Dynamic.pdf. Note: This is the Built-in folder, not the Plug-ins folder!
3. I have imported a graphic with a form field to give current date and time but, of course, it doesn't update, even though I copied the calculation script from another Adobe-created dynamic stamp.

Here's what I still don't know:

1. Where are my custom stamps stored on a Mac?
2. Why won't my new dynamic stamp update with current date and time?

That is the exact same problem i am having, i found the stamp (it is in your user/library/acrobat user data), it will be a long list of numbers and letters. I was told it could be renamed but i had no luck with that either. All I asked above was for someone to check the 3 lines of code that i pasted to see why it didnt work. I havent seen any reply on what is wrong yet. Hopefully we will get an answer.

Stuart

Thanks for your input, Stuart. The problem for me is I have no user/library/acrobat user data. I have user/library/application support/adobe/acrobat, which takes me to a bunch of internal files that I have no idea what they are. Any other ideas where they might be? Remember, I'm using Adobe Acrobat X Pro on a Mac.

it should be in there, I have another folder in that "Acrobat" one named 9.0_x86 which has a bunch of other folders in it including a stamps one.

The exact stamp is a page within one of those files. You probably need to open each PDF and look for the particular stamp. you can open the Page navigator panel to see a preview of each page.

Thanks, George. I have opened every PDF in every folder and there is nothing. And yet, I have custom stamps that I have created and imported. I can't believe how user-unfriendly Acrobat is... very frustrating. Surely there is a programmer somewhere chuckling over where s/he has hidden these files.

There are at least 2 folders for stamps, JavaScript, etc. One folder is at the application or system level for all users the other folder is for a specific user.

Since you imported the PDF stamp image, it is most likely in the user folder.

This is application programing and configuration. It is not friendly as friendly usually requires a lot more code.

Here is a way to find it, since spotlight wont search inside your user folder download an app (i just downloaded and tried "find any file") for free and tried it, it worked perfectly. Just search for "stamps" and it will bring up the folder where it is. Hope that helps

Well, again, thanks for your time on this. I have no idea where the "user stamp location" is and apparently nobody else does on a Mac. I have found tons of articles on the net showing how to do this on a Windows PC, but none for Mac. I've blown 7 hours on this so far, on a program I paid hundreds of $$$ for. Not real pleased with the folks at Adobe.

You can use JavaScript and the console to locate this location. See the previously linked Dynamic Stamp Secrets by Thom Parker for the necessary code and links to additional resources about custom dynamic stamps.The location of resources needed by Acrobat/Reader is to a large extent is dictated by the the Operating System creator and sometimes by Adobe. Be glad there is some method to locate the location. Most users have Windows, so you might not find a lot Macintosh savy users here.

George, I solved the problem: Further investigation reveals that, on the Mac, the Library folder everyone is looking for is actually hidden. I found it, imported a couple of new dynamic stamps, tested them and everything works! I'll write up a detailed procedure that I followed and post here so the information is out there. Thanks again for your help.

How to create a Custom Dynamic Stamp in Acrobat X Pro on an iMac running OSX 10.7 Lion

For this tutorial, I am assuming you are familiar with editing Adobe Acrobat forms and working with form fields and their properties.

Step 1 - Create the graphic for your new stamp.

I’ve been creating mine in Photoshop or Illustrator and save them in PDF format, but you can use other formats such as .jpeg, .gif, .tif, etc.

Step 2 – Create your new stamp.

Open Acrobat, click on the Stamp Tool icon, under Annotations
Select Custom Stamps, then select Create Custom Stamp
A dialog comes up titled Select Image for Custom Stamp. Browse to your graphic and click OK.
The next dialog is titled Create Custom Stamp. Select a Category for your new stamp or create a new category, then type a name for the new stamp. Click OK.
Your new stamp has now been created and you should be able to see it when you click on your Stamp Tool within a document.

Step 3 – Find the new stamp you just created.

To make your new stamp dynamic, you have to access the document containing the new stamp, which is in a Library folder. This is NOT the Library folder found on your hard disk that also contains the Applications folder, Users folder, etc. In Mac OS 10.7 Lion, the Library folder you need is hidden.
To access the hidden Library folder:

1. In the Finder, choose Go > Go To Folder.
2. In the Go To Folder dialog, type ~/Library
3. Click Go.

Once the hidden Library dialog opens, follow this navigation path:

Application Support/Adobe/Acrobat/10.0/Stamps

There you will find the stamp you created – it will have about 22 random characters in its name, followed by the .pdf suffix. You can change the name of the document, but it will look something like this: Vc_FHQjXPd98F-elgXBJBA.pdf

Step 4 – Make your new stamp dynamic.

Open this document. The first page will be blank, so go to the second page. From there, you can add form fields to customize your stamp with date, time, etc.
An easy way to get started with these fields is to copy one from the generic dynamic stamps that came with your software. You’ll find those in the Applications folder, following this path:

Applications/Adobe Acrobat Pro folder/(right-click on) Adobe Acrobat Pro/Show Package Contents/Built-in/Comments.acroplugin/Stamps/ENU/Dynamic.pdf

Once you get there, open Dynamic.pdf and scroll to one of the generic dynamic stamps. Under Tools, go into Edit mode. Copy the field you see there, return to your new stamp, Step 3 above, and paste it into the PDF containing your new stamp.
From there, you can customize the field properties, adjust the JavaScript for calculations, etc.

It took me a full day of researching to find all this out, so if you have questions, write to me and I’ll try to help.

I need some help with creating a dynamic stamp... I'm trying to create one that has a fillable field (similar to an exhibit stamp) where I can type in the Invoice # that correlates to the PDF document I am working on. I have another stamp that has the script to do this, but it does not work properly to copy and paste it into the new stamp (like you can do for the name/date/time fields in other dynamic stamps). I've tried editing the java script (changing the file name) as other tutorials have suggested with no luck. When I try to use the stamp that I created, the text field does not even show up. Any suggestions for what I'm doing wrong? Is there anyone more knowledgable than me that is willing to take this project off my hands and create the dang thing so it works properly? I'm getting so frustrated that this process is so difficult (when it seemingly should be so easy).

In the mean time, I guess I'll just keep using my previous method of typing the information in a text field.

Thanks for any help/suggestions.

Jen

Jen,

If you're looking for help with this, feel free to contact me offline: acroscript at gmail dot com