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Signature with transparent background

biotechette
Registered: Feb 28 2007
Posts: 6
Answered

When using Adobe Acrobat signature to sign document: using Uploaded signature file that is a scan of your signature, I upload a transparent background file such as a tif file but when Adobe places it in the document it makes the background white such that the signature block covers up text around it. Hence, signature block has to be made very small to fit in most signature lines. Any way to keep uploaded file with transparent background?

My Product Information:
Acrobat Standard 9.4, Windows
KellyMcC
Acrobat 9ExpertTeam
Registered: Jul 11 2011
Posts: 389
Accepted Answer
If you erase the background and save the signature file in Photoshop as Photoshop PDF that will preserve the transparency.

Kelly McCathran
Adobe Community Expert
Certified Technical Trainer+

biotechette
Registered: Feb 28 2007
Posts: 6
I don't have Photoshop but can find someone who does. Anyone else know if any other file type will conserve the transparency - such as TIF or BMP or other?
George_Johnson
Expert
Registered: Jul 6 2008
Posts: 1875
This might help: http://www.gregledet.net/?p=5
KellyMcC
Acrobat 9ExpertTeam
Registered: Jul 11 2011
Posts: 389
TIF & GIF do have an option for Transparency, as long as it's enabled, but ultimately you need to convert the file to PDF to use it in a custom stamp.

Kelly McCathran
Adobe Community Expert
Certified Technical Trainer+

Dimitri
Expert
Registered: Nov 1 2005
Posts: 1389
Hi biotechette,

If you have Microsoft Word you can create a transparent signature- this blog by Rick Borstein goes over the steps to use in Word as well as PS - http://blogs.adobe.com/acrolaw/2007/02/creating_a_tran_1/

Hope this helps,

Dimitri
www.pdfscripting.com
www.windjack.com
tcb
Registered: May 12 2008
Posts: 15
George, Kelly and Dimitri,

I've had a similar problem where my image signature (a PNG file with transparent background) shows up clearly in edit mode of Acrobat X Pro (Mac OSX Lion) but will NOT show up in print preview mode and WILL NOT print out at all.

1) Is this because Acrobat ONLY supports the GIF and TIFF file types for signatures with transparent backgrounds? And DOES NOT support PNG image files with transparency?

2) And if I understand Kelly correctly, even if my source file image is done correctly in TIFF, GIFF and/or PNG, it STILL must FIRST be converted into a PDF BEFORE being imported and added to ACROBAT X PRO's Stamp Palette...yes?

TCB
Katarina.Onuschak
Registered: Aug 2 2011
Posts: 4
Ok, I tried to convert my gif file into pdf... the situation is the same. I can see the stamp signature but it will not print, even if the signature was created from pdf file. And it did work before. Can someone come up with a solution please?

Katarina Onuschak

CM Ed
Registered: Aug 18 2011
Posts: 1
Using only MS Word & Acrobat 9 to create a transparent background;
Method #2 for transparent background.
In Word, set font size to 24 and font to Times New Roman and color to dark purple.
Type the text that you want to appear in the stamp.
If this is to be a dynamic stamp with metadata;
At the end of the text, set the font size to 10, enter a carriage return. Enter enough spaces to match the length of the text line and insert a period.
Save the document. Save it again as PDF.
In the PDF file, select the crop box.
Crop the text for the stamp. Be sure to include the hanging period for dynamic stamps.
Right click inside the cropped area and select Set Crop Box.
Save the PDF file.

In Acrobat select Tools/Comment & Markup/Stamps/Create Custom Stamp. Browse to the PDF that you just saved. Enter a Category and Name for the new stamp. The box for Down sample stamp to reduce file size should be checked. Click OK.
The custom stamp is now available in Acrobat.

If this is to be a dynamic stamp, open the dynamic.pdf label from Acrobat in;
C:\Program Files/Adobe/Acrobat 9.0/Acrobat/plug_ins/Annotations/Stamps/ENU
Scroll down to the desired text. In Acrobat select Tools/Advanced Editing/Select Object Tool.
Click on the text you wish to copy and copy the object.
Note: foozle & Aug 6, 2004 will change to your name and the current date when you save the label.
In C:/Documents and Settings/username/Application Data/Adobe/Acrobat/9.0/Stamps, open your new label. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and paste in the copied object. Use Tools/Advanced Editing/Select Object Tool to resize and position the pasted object.
Save the file.
Your new stamp should now be available in Acrobat


It takes a long time to make old friends.

TasmanRay
Registered: Aug 12 2011
Posts: 5
While I made the original post on this topic, I find all of the solutions to be cumbersome on what should be an intuitive process. Adobe needs to make signature stamps uncopiable in Acrobat.
Ray

RayA

UVSAR
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
Er, no you didn't, biotechette did.

Using a stamp as a pseudo-signature is and never will be secure against copying, it's a comment like any other - Acrobat cares not if it says "Signed by Joe Doe" or "Hello World", anyone with Acrobat can edit it, even if it's been flattened.

Adobe certainly *do* have an intuitive and secure way to sign documents, it's using Digital IDs and a genuine "signature" field. They can't be copied, edited or extracted, and the process of making a self-signed digital ID takes about 20 seconds.


TasmanRay wrote:
While I made the original post on this topic, I find all of the solutions to be cumbersome on what should be an intuitive process. Adobe needs to make signature stamps uncopiable in Acrobat.
Ray
KellyMcC
Acrobat 9ExpertTeam
Registered: Jul 11 2011
Posts: 389
TCB & Katarina,I've not had good luck with GIFs preserving their transparency in an Acrobat stamp, but PNG & Tiff do work properly (PDF is simply my 1st choice). The signature should print, and show up when Previewing (in the print dialog). Double check that you have "Document and Markups" selected in the print dialog. If it only says "Document" the stamp won't print.

Kelly McCathran
Adobe Community Expert
Certified Technical Trainer+