Adding a signature field for Adobe

[Philip-Kazmeier]

Hey guys,

I have a question regarding the usage of this library to create a signature field that can be used to digitally sign a PDF file.
In Adobe Pro I can create such fields (see here: https://helpx.adobe.com/sign/using/digital-signatures.html) in LaTeX i can use the eforms package for that (https://ctan.org/pkg/eforms).

I have already has a look at the addPlaceholder functionality (#159), but it seems like it is not like I would expect it.

Is this even possible with the library?
If yes: How? Could anyone give an example on how to place the field on a certain page or on how to add multiple placeholders?
If no: Does anyone know an alternative?

Greetings,
Philip

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had activity in the past 90 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[prdufresne]

I'm certain there would be a great deal of demand for a response to this. I have been trying to work this out myself with no luck.

[vbuch]

#153 #150 #143 #129 #128 #107 #39 #26

[Philip-Kazmeier]

@vbuch So if I understand the referenced issues correctly, the purpose of this library is not to create such an element that can be used with Adobe. Is this assumption correct? Do you know of any other library that allows something like that?

[vbuch]

I really want to have the time to show you how this is done. I don't. As @prdufresne said, the demand is high for this which is obvious by the number of times people have asked about it.

It won't be done with node-signpdf but rather with pdfkit, pdf-lib, etc.

[prdufresne]

It took my some time, because pdfkit doesn't have direct support for it, but I have figured out how to add the signature block using pdfkit. See the link below for the code I used. I basically manually add the signature field annotation. I also show how you could use it to lock fields when a signature is applied.

foliojs/pdfkit#1381

[stale]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had activity in the past 90 days. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

[vbuch]

@prdufresne I just see your comment now. I'm sorry you had hard time with that. At the time you wrote it this was already demoed long ago in the tests. Hope the newly introduced examples will help more in the future. Here is a new one I'm adding. #200

[vbuch]

@Philip-Kazmeier you are right. The initial idea of node-signpdf was to only provide the cryptgraphic part of the signing which is something Adobe will do in your use-case. Now this has changed quite recently and that part of node-signpdf is now called @signpdf/signpdf. The parts reagarding your needs are separate packages. Currently https://www.npmjs.com/package/@signpdf/placeholder-pdfkit010 and https://www.npmjs.com/package/@signpdf/placeholder-plain are available. Hopefully me or other contributors will create more of these.