Introduction

You can also stamp images onto a document. Images for stamping can be in JPEG, TIFF, or PDF format. Both standard JPEG and Photoshop JPEG formats are supported.

For convenience, the parameters that pertain to image stamping are repeated here:

Stamp parameters — detailed description

The Label, Pagination, and Positioning parameters work as they do with text stamps. The parameters exclusive to Image stamps are described below.

Label parameters

Type (required)

Type specifies the kind of image that will be stamped. Images include JPEG and TIFF. PDF images are defined as a separate type. To specify the type of image use the following:

Image to stamp a JPEG or TIFF file

Type (Image)

PDF to stamp a PDF file

Type (PDF)

Image options parameters

Path (required)

Path specifies the location of the image file to stamp. Enter the directory path, using the full path is best practice, and use the convention that is native to your operating system. Windows separates directories with backslashes: \, while UNIX systems use forward slashes: /. For the image called Image.jpg in our samples directory path will look like this on Windows:

Path (C:\Appligent\AppendPro\Samples\Image.jpg)

Scale (optional)

The Scale parameter increases or decreases the size of the original image when it is stamped onto the PDF document. A scale of 0.5 will make the image half (50%) of its original size, while a scale of 2 (200%) will double it.

Notes on positioning image files

Positioning works differently for images than it does for text.

For text, margin settings and positioning parameters act together to position a text stamp. The Top, Right, Bottom and Left parameters specify a rectangle, and the Position and Justification parameters place the text within that rectangle.

For images, the Bottom and Left parameters specify the location of the bottom left corner of the image.

The Position and Justification parameters are alternate means of specifying position. Use the Position parameter in place of Bottom for vertical positioning, and the Justification parameter in place of Left for horizontal positioning:

• Bottom overrides Position. If you specify a Bottom value, any Position value is ignored.
• Left overrides Justification. If you specify a Left value, any Justification value is ignored.

For example, you could specify that the left and  bottom corner is a (0,0), but then you cannot center the image on the page as well.

In either case, use the Scale parameter to size the image.

A sample image stamp item

For example, the figure below shows the stamp item in letterstamp.txt to place a signature:

Stamping a PDF file

Set the Type parameter to PDF to stamp a PDF file onto your document. For example, if you have a company letterhead in PDF format, you can stamp this on all your computer generated invoices to create personalized, professional invoices.

Some notes about stamping PDF files:

• If the PDF document contains more than one page, the first page will be stamped onto your document by default. If you want to stamp an image of a different page use the PageNumber parameter listed below.
• PDF files are usually full page size. PDF stamps are convenient for stamping information that is already positioned on a page so you don’t have to worry about manually placing individual elements by specifying position in points.
• The white areas in a PDF stamp are not transparent. Make sure the stamp does not interfere with the content of your document and that you set Underlay to Yes. You can also crop the PDF page in Acrobat if the stamp does not fill the entire page to remove extra white areas.

Image options parameters

PageNumber (optional)

If you are placing an image of Type (PDF), and the PDF document has more than one page in the file, use the PageNumber option to specify the PDF page number that has the PDF image you want to stamp into your document. If you do not enter a PageNumber, the first page of the PDF will be used as the image stamp.

A sample PDF stamp item

For example, the figure below shows the stamp item in letterstamp.txt to place a PDF file looks like this: