Stamp stamp stamp stamp stamp

January 27, 2016 9:44 AM

I'm looking for a PDF editor for Mac which allows me to create my own stamp -- and that stamp needs to have editable fields.

I know this is a feature in Acrobat Pro, but I'm hoping I can find any alternative for cheaper. Basically I want to be able to stamp a PDF with APPROVED and then have a field included in the stamp in which I can type in who approved the thing. I've already got several programs with custom stamps, but then I have to spend time fiddling with the text tool and trying to line up the text I type with the stamp I stamped, and I don't wanna do that anymore.

Google is unhelpful, and it doesn't appear to be a widely-demanded feature such that it isn't mentioned in reviews or product websites, so I'm having to download app after app to see if they do this.

posted by shakespeherian to Computers & Internet (7 answers total)

You can get a free thirty day trial of most of the Adobe Products including Acrobat. I tested the trial a while back, and it didn't seem like there were any limitations on what you could do with the software. This might be workable if you only need to do this operation once. Acrobat really is the gold standard.
posted by gregr at 9:49 AM on January 27, 2016

Response by poster: Unfortunately my need is ongoing.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:51 AM on January 27, 2016

You might try PDFPenPro. It seems like it might have that capability but I'm not good enough with it to really tell, sorry.
posted by bluesky78987 at 1:23 PM on January 27, 2016

The office where I work uses Bluebeam Revu from Novedge. I think it’s about 1/3 the cost of Acrobat Pro. We have stamps with editable fields. I just started here, so I have no idea if they were hard to set up, but they work fine from my standpoint. So far it seems like a pretty good program, intuitive especially if you’re already familiar with Acrobat Pro.
posted by Kriesa at 1:33 PM on January 27, 2016

Seconding Bluebeam Revu, my office has switched to it for all of our pdf needs. I custom made our vendor drawing approval stamp in under an hour.
posted by token-ring at 4:27 PM on January 27, 2016

Response by poster: Bluebeam Revu appears to be Windows-only.
posted by shakespeherian at 4:35 PM on January 27, 2016

STAMPtk is available for OSX and is $95.
You can also install pdftk ( $0 ) and you can then stamp with any pdf you create ;
pdftk in.pdf stamp stamp.pdf output out.pdf
wrap that in a script .
posted by stuartmm at 4:21 AM on January 28, 2016