Acrobat 9: Custom Stamps

by David R. Mankin

Acrobat technology provides an amazing way to share documents with others and to participate in a shared review cycle of the documents efficiently.

The Comment & Markup toolbar is loaded with familiar tools. Most are digital versions of things that are in your pencil cups and in your desk drawers. There is no need to visit the help file to figure out how the Highlight Tool is used since it works just like the plastic one on your desk.

One commenting tool that has a nice twist to its capabilities is the Stamp Tool. The Stamp tool comes preloaded with some basic stamps. They are categorized in groups such as Dynamic, Sign Here and Standard Business images. Once placed on your page, the stamps can be resized, rotated and a text-based note can be attached.

An often overlooked feature of the Stamp Tool is the ability to create your own custom stamp. The creation process is easy. On your Comment & Markup toolbar, click the small down-arrow to the right of the Stamp Tool (rubber stamp icon). From the menu, choose Create Custom Stamp. Since your new stamp will be created from an existing image (or pdf file), click the Browse button and locate your image file. Note: You may have to change the Files of Type option to match your image file's extension.

Click OK and you will then have the opportunity to give your custom stamp a name and to choose in which category your stamp will be placed. You may select an existing category, or type a name for a brand new category here. Once you click OK, your stamp is ready to use.

Wow–yet another way to make your work stand out from the crowd. If you want extraordinary PDF files instead of ordinary ones, sign up for one of my Acrobat classes where you will learn that there are tons of neat and useful hidden commands and capabilities.

 

About the author: David R. Mankin is a Certified Technical Trainer, desktop publisher, computer graphic artist, and Web page developer. And if that wasn't enough, of course David is an Adobe-certified expert in Adobe Acrobat.