Dynamic stamp content is text content assembled from information that changes based on preset conditions or user input. Dynamic stamps display real-time, variable information that can change from page to page, document to document, and user to user.
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What is Dynamic Stamp Content?
Bates stamping is one of the most recognizable forms of dynamic stamp content due to its prevalent use by the legal industry for organizing and identifying documents. Other uses for dynamic stamping are:
- Date and Time stamps
- Page Numbering
- User Information
- Project and Client Names
- Workflow and Document Status Labels
- Document File Path
- Paths to company logos and other images to watermark pages
TIFF Image Printer, Raster Image Printer, and PDF Image Printer include a stamping feature for adding image, text, page numbering, and date and time stamps on the pages of your created documents. Combined with PEERNET’s run command macros, environment variables, and registry keys, you can build dynamic stamp content to place on your pages.
How to Use Dynamic Stamp Content
You can use dynamic content in the image stamp path, custom text in a text stamp, and any text in page number, date, and time stamps. You can combine static text and dynamic content to create your final stamp result. For instance, you can add dynamic content like a unique ID, the name of the user who created the file, and date and time information to a header or footer on a created file for tracking purposes.
There are three ways to supply dynamic content: PEERNET’s run command macros, environment variables, and custom registry keys you create.
Run Command Macros
The Image Printers define these variables, or macros, as we call them. Initially created for use in the Run Commands, you can also use them to build dynamic stamp content. A PEERNET run command macro is specified using the syntax $(VariableName), where VariableName is one of the predefined macros.
The macro is a placeholder and is replaced with its dynamic value when placing the stamp on your page. The collection of macros includes print job information about the document you printed to create your file, unique ID numbers generated by the image printers, print job information, and the file name of the created file.
Environment Variables
Environment variables are key-value pairs where the key is the variable name, and the value is the associated data. They are part of the operating system. Any running program can ask for the value of an environment variable by name. An environment variable is referenced by placing a % sign before and after the variable’s name. The use of environment variables enhances the flexibility of dynamic stamp content.
The Windows operating system defines several well-known environment variables, such as %TEMP%, %USERNAME%, and %COMPUTERNAME%. You can create new custom environment variables for your user account or all users through the System Properties window.
A typical use of an environment variable might be to store the path to company logos or other watermarking images. This path might differ between users, but if we use the environment variable name to specify the value in the path to a watermark image stamp, we’ll always be able to find the image.
Custom Registry Keys
Registry keys are similar to environment variables. Stored in the Windows Registry, they contain information that can later be retrieved and used as dynamic stamp content.
You can manually add registry keys, or more often the case, they are created and updated by another program that integrates TIFF or PDF creation using our Image Printers.
The Windows Registry stores configuration settings and options for the Windows operating system and keeps track of information and settings for installed software and hardware devices. Editing the registry can be risky if you make incorrect changes. For this reason, only advanced users or administrators should modify it directly.
Use the special syntax, $[registry key], when using a registry key in a stamp. Replace the name ‘registry key’ with the complete path to the registry key with the value name as that last item.
Creating Dynamic Stamp Content
To show you the power of dynamic stamp content, we’re adding stamps to a printer profile that adds the following to the bottom of each page for tracking purposes:
- A text stamp displaying the user and company name using values obtained from environment variables.
- The date we create the file using the built-in date/time stamp.
- A unique ID for the file, using the predefined run command macro $(FileGUID).
- A text stamp containing the case code for identification using information retrieved from a registry key.
Adding the User and Company Information
A well-known environment variable containing the current user name already exists as %USERNAME%. There isn’t one for the company name, so we will create a custom system environment variable, %COMPANYNAME%, to use as dynamic stamp content in our new stamp. Here, we’ve set it to our company name, PEERNET Inc..
After adding the new environment variable, we can use both values in our dynamic text stamp.
Creating a Date Stamp
The built-in date and time stamp makes adding date and time information stamps easy. Add your custom text before or after the date, and choose from a selection of date, time, and date and time formats.
Adding a Unique ID
The printers will generate a unique ID each time you print a file. You can reference this ID using the run command macro $(FileGUID). Here, we’ve added some static text at the start, followed by the macro as a line in our footer text.
Adding the Case Code
A case code in the footer of a document is a dynamic stamp value that another program could create as part of a workflow that integrates with the Image printers. You can manually create and edit registry keys using the Windows regedit program, but take care when editing and deleting values. The Windows registry is a critical part of the operating system; incorrect changes and deletions can be catastrophic.
Now that we have a registry key with dynamic content, we can use it in a stamp. To use the registry key in the stamp text, use the syntax $[path to registry value]. Specify the full path to the key ending with the name of the value you want to retrieve.
Positioning the Dynamic Content Stamps
Now that we have our dynamic stamp content, the last step is to position each stamp to appear one after the other at the bottom left of the page.
The default placement of a stamp is always the center of a page. To position each stamp in the footer, we first need to change the alignment of each stamp to the bottom and left of the page.
To change the alignment, go to the Position tab for each stamp and set the horizontal alignment to the left and the vertical alignment to the bottom. This places all four stamps directly on top of each other in the bottom left.
Next, we want to fine-tune the position of the stamps to be 0.25 inches from the left edge of the paper and offset each stamp vertically so that they line up one under the other. We move the position of each stamp up the page using an increasingly larger negative offset.
The first line of our footer has the highest negative offset. The offset values here work with the chosen font of Arial and a size of 8pt. When using different fonts or a larger size of Arial, adjust the offsets to account for the change in text size. For our sample, the offsets are -0.43, -0.32, -0.21, and -0.10 inches, respectively.
Conclusion
Dynamic stamp content is a powerful tool for cataloging documents and automating document management workflows. Whether adding contextual information, content storage data, or enforcing security measures and tracking information, dynamic stamps offer a flexible and efficient solution to meet your document needs.
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