Introduction to Automating SecurSign

You can use SecurSign with scripts to automate your work. The following sections tell you how:

SecurSign within a Document Processing and Delivery Solution

As SecurSign is server-based and command-line driven, it can be used efficiently within a script or program that processes large volumes of PDF documents in an unattended environment. These documents may be installed on a web server, an interoffice file server, or some other public server where maintaining security is important.

Adding security to a document should generally be the last step of processing. Appligent has available several products for processing PDF documents. Any of these, or a combination, could be used before applying security features with SecurSign. The products available are as follows:

  • AppendPDF Pro — Append several PDF documents or pages of documents together to produce one complete document. Add a cover page and a table of contents, as well as text stamps to any of the pages.
  • FDFMerge — Merge PDF forms together with FDF or XFDF data files to create a completed form. With FDFMerge’s form-flattening feature, form fields are removed, making the output document more portable and less easily modified.
  • StampPDF Batch — Add text to PDF documents as headers or footers, watermarks, etc. Stamps can be page numbers, date/time, filenames — in any RGB/CMYK color or grayscale, Adobe PostScript Type 1 font, point size, and/or position. Stamps can be overlaid or underlaid text, outline text, invisible text and/or multi-line.

Note: If you would like more information about these and other Appligent products, visit our Server Product page.

The figure below shows an example of using SecurSign as part of a document processing solution that uses AppendPDF and StampPDF Batch before using SecurSign to add security features. (The work done by AppendPDF and StampPDF Batch could also be done by using the single product AppendPDF Pro.) Once the document is secured, it is ready for delivery.

Use AppendPDF to combine several documents into a new document.

Use StampPDF Batch to add text and images to your assembled document.

As the final step in document processing, use SecurSign to sign and optionally, encrypt PDF documents.

Using SecurSign in a Perl Script

Using SecurSign within a Perl script requires a simple system call. The following example uses Perl to call StampPDF and SecurSign:

system "stamppdf stampfile.txt file1.pdf"; system "secursign -encrypt -ownerpass owner -userpass user -keylength 40 -noprint -nomodify -nocopy -nonotes -o outfile1.pdf file1.pdf";
  1. The first system call calls StampPDF Batch, where the stamps specified in stampfile.txt are applied to the document file1.pdf
  2. The second system call calls SecurSign, where standard security features are applied to the document file1.pdf (do not allow printing, allow only form fill-in or signing). Owner and User passwords are set to owner and user, respectively.