Signed PDFs questions
Printed From: Debenu Quick PDF Library - PDF SDK Community Forum
Category: For Users of the Library
Forum Name: General Discussion
Forum Description: Discussion board for Debenu Quick PDF Library and Debenu PDF Viewer SDK
URL: http://www.quickpdf.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=1038
Printed Date: 23 Nov 24 at 7:34AM
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Signed PDFs questions
Posted By: jabaltie
Subject: Signed PDFs questions
Date Posted: 19 Mar 09 at 1:57PM
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Hello !
I'm around with digitally signing PDFs again. I have posted here in the past (sorry!) but, by that time, it didnt took off. Today I still have some questions. Wait... I still have a BUNCH of them ! 
Just a few : - Is this process of signing PDFs really established ? That is , is this mature ? - Can anyone offer us a sample of a signed PDF ? - When I open THAT signed PDF on Acrobat, how do I know that is signed ? Is there a watermark or something else ? - Is a signed PDF really inviolable ? No one can mess with it or create a fake signature of myself ? - To sign a PDF, may I use a httpS/SSL certificate that I have currently for my Apache server/site ? I'm https://www.unimep.br - May I sign using QuickPDF ? Guess not. Is it on the roadmap ? Or , do you have alternative products to do that ? What do you suggest ? - I'd like to have a product to both convert HTML to PDF and sign it right away. So INPUT is HTML, OUTPUT is a SIGNED PDF. Do you know something ? Thanks ! |
Replies:
Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 3:01AM
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Hi! You can test this all before you're buying - Make your own impression ;-) BTW: Digital signing has nothing to do with a watermarks. I don't know about a pdf-library that offers "html to pdf" functionality this doesn't have to do with basically pdf-functions. Why there are so many components of this kind out there ;-) Cheers, Ingo |
Posted By: DELBEKE
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 4:50AM
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Hi jabatie
If you have a look in older post, you can see that IsedQuickPdf no loger exist because Debenu has acquire all rights. You can have a trail version at http://www.quickpdflibrary.com - www.quickpdflibrary.com . So you can test every thing about digital signature by yourself. .
I have not already test signing function in the new QuickPdf library.
Has far i have understand, this is using a PKCS#12 file and httpS/SSL can 't be used
perhaps the function DraxHTMLText will be enough for your needs.
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Posted By: DELBEKE
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 5:32AM
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Hi again jabatie
I just test the function SignFile. It work well.
Nothing appear on the rendering in Acrobat (invisible sign). But Acrobat show a new tab : Signatures, where you can see everthing about the signing informations.
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Posted By: jabaltie
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 7:30AM
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Answering to all posts : - I wondered that digital sign would add some visible stuff, like a watermark for instance. - There are many products out there but I'd like to use ONLY ONE for doing it all. Preferably QuickPDF. - I knew Debenu had acquired QuickPDF. This is good indeed. - Can you provide a sample of your signed PDF to us ? - DrawHTMLtext is way, way too simple. Need something more sophisticated. Thanks ! |
Posted By: Ingo
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 8:07AM
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Hi Jabaltie! Please read here: http://www.quickpdflibrary.com/help/quickpdf/SignFile.php This forum is from users and for users. If you've made your sample-app you can post it in the samples-section, please. Cheers, Ingo |
Posted By: deabrew
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 8:15AM
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Thanks Ingo!
Here's a few more tips -- Jabaltie, please don't quote me on dates, I'm just trying to give you an idea as to what's coming... 1. At the moment we only support invisible signatures. When the PDF is opened into Adobe Reader / Acrobat a panel will open on the side showing the signature details. 2. In future (TBA) we will support visible signatures. We will provide some templates but users can design their own layout. The visible signature will be overlayed with a green tick / check mark by Acrobat. 3. We don't support verifying existing signatures yet - this will be added to a future version. Again TBA. Please don't quote me on a date, it'll depend on customer demand as well. We've got to weigh this up with other features. 4. The digital identity used for the signature must be in a .pfx file which contains a digital certificate and the private key. For the HTML issue: a full HTML parser and renderer is a very difficult thing to do - especially in a paged environment like PDF. Things like style sheets and tables make it a challenge to get right for any possible input format. It's usually good advice for the web page to be coded in a way that it can operate in two different ways depending on a flag. Either output HTML or something like a simple text file with all the information that needs to go onto the page. It's then easier to parse the simple text file and put things onto the PDF in appropriate places. I hope this helps... |
Posted By: jabaltie
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 8:55AM
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Hello ! Thank you so much for your answer. You can call me Adriano. Some points : - We're looking to HTML 2 PDF conversion as an alternative to PDF templates. We have built a system that mix XML data fields coming from a Unisys mainframe, onto a PDF template , using QuickPDF. Then we generate PDFs that are stored on students/teachers/employees folders (we're a Methodist University here in Brazil). We had many, many problems with 4.41 mixing data on those form fields. Randomly it would mix data amongst two documents, while in large batch processing. This was a bug of QuickPDF. Hope it has been fixed. We did a huge workaround to overcome this problem - identify form fields attributes, erase them all and draw text using those attributes. It's working. No problems anymore of mixing data. - Those folders above, document folders, are accessible by a web browser either by the student/teacher/employee as the internal university team (based on rights of course). - So we no longer PRINT students grades report. We generate them dinamically and stuff them onto those folders. Each student has it's own of course. Also for SEVERAL other documents. Payroll documents, academic documents and many , many others are generated electronically and stored on those folders. - Currently we do A LOT of this using simple/plain ASCII files. They are shown inside a HTML page that improves layout. - The plan is to CONVERT it all to a better presentation, either using pure HTML or PDFs. - We think that PDF templates are way, way too rigid. Very difficult/limited. - So, the alternatives we have here are : - Store those documents in HTML , instead of plain ASCII file - then the student grade report will be a HTML file, instead of a ASCII file, as it is nowadays. - Store those documents in PDF using PDF templates - all technology established already. But, would give some work and , it's not so flexible. - Generate those documents in HTML and then convert them to PDF. We wonder this would give us an ENORMOUS flexibility. We have for instance MANY MANY CONTRACTS (lines and lines of text with variable data mixed inside) that would be IMPRACTIBLE to do with templates. With HTML this would be easy. Text just "wraps" easily. Currently those contracts are plain TEXT files . It's very, very ugly. But it works. And students "sign" them electronically by adding their password ON THE SITE. Then the contract goes into the student's folder after signed by the student. It's a personalized contract. - The PDF signature would be "a plus". Not only we would have the documents stored but also, we would have authenticity on top of them. Well , hope you have understood the project ! I understand your fear about them HTML 2 PDF conversion. The thing is that other members of the team have found products to do that and, I cant so far fight against this alternative because it LOOKs very very versatile. On another hand , PDF signatures, either on templates or converted HTML would be an enourmous achievment, I guess. But, let me know what do you think or, let's listen to other members as well, OK ? Thanks !  |
Posted By: deabrew
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 8:59AM
| Hey Adriano, well, it's 00:00 AM here on the 21st -- I'm well more than half asleep -- so I'd love to hear what the other members have to say... :-) |
Posted By: jabaltie
Date Posted: 20 Mar 09 at 9:24AM
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I see ! Go for your weekend there ! It's saturday. Enjoy it ! I'm anxiously waiting for mine here. We'll talk monday about it then. Thanks ! |
Posted By: deabrew
Date Posted: 30 Mar 09 at 1:06AM
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Hi Jose,
Do you actually intend to use the HTML -- or is it simple a transition/storage format? If you intend to convert from HTML to PDF using Quick PDF Library then a full list of the supported HTML tags is available here at - http://www.quickpdflibrary.com/help/quickpdf/AppendixA.php - http://www.quickpdflibrary.com/help/quickpdf/AppendixA.php You can use the digital signatures functions to provide authenticity of your document. The version in 7.12 does not include visual signatures. |
Posted By: jabaltie
Date Posted: 30 Mar 09 at 8:01AM
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I'm looking for a more convenient way to draw my document templates. As I said, I have many documents "contract like" which are documents with many paragraphs, with variable data. Say that I have a paragraph with the customer name, address and so forth. I need this paragraph to "wrap" and the rest of the document to "grow" or "shrink" depending on this first paragraph. I can not do that with PDF templates. But I can do that very, very easily with HTML. So my plan is to use HTML as "document template". Because of this idea, I need some product that supports more HTML tags. About the signature, also we would like something "evident" or that "bubles up" to the end user of the PDF document. We dont have to solve that for "tomorrow" but, we're looking for a solution. Thanks for your support ! |