Dynamic Stamps not working - just a selection tool

[dw24154351]

For about a year now, I been using a dynamic stamp a couple of times of month to annotate PDFs. It has been working fine. 

However, on one Mac when you select a stamp the placement no longer shows the actual stamp and is really in "selection mode" only allowing you to draw a blue bounding box. It really isn't going into stamp placement mode where you see a preview of the stamp before you insert it.

Manually copied the stamp to another machine. (Realised that stamps have no sense in following the user sign in around - that's an oversight and a missed opportunity to use Adobe Cloud space). It works as expected on the second machine.

What kicks stamps into proper gear again?

I've just uninstalled and re-installed and that didn't make a difference.

Latest Acrobat on Sonoma 14.5

[try67]

Does it happen with all stamps, just dynamic ones, or just a specific dynamic one?

[dw24154351]

It was all stamps. 

Just figured out what's going on. First the first time, one of the PDFs was sent as secured. Which means can't be modified.

So what this reveals about Acrobat usability in this scenario is:

1. The feedback about the document being secured is located in the top tab
2. Tabs are typically always truncated, despite in this case only one file being opened - there's really no need to truncate unless there are many more files
3. Hovering over the file name in the tab only *sometimes* reveals the "secured" label - just tried again and could not reveal it
4. There doesn't seem to be any other place that shows a security lock, so there is minimal feedback
5. The stamp tool isn't smart enough to reveal that this document isn't editable, the stamp tool should be disabled or give better feedback about the document security. Other edit workflows keep asking for password entry.
6. Defaulting to being a bounding box isn't helpful - it should do nothing and update the cursor to give the right feedback
7. Suggests a new feature to embed a secure PDF within a stamped PDF. I've been legitimately sent a secure document that I do need to annotate for my filing purposes -  but in no way modify - I should be able to create my own version that retains the orignal document but just adds a layer for my stamp. (to get around this I'll probably convert it to an image and bring it back as a PDF - a slight waste of my time)

[dw24154351]

The tool bar seems to suggest editability by the "absence" of other tools. Not a great source of feedback if you only use Acrobat a couple of times per month.

[try67]

You're right, the feedback on this is pretty bad. The tool should either be disabled entirely, or there should be an alert window saying something like "This document is secured. Adding comments is not allowed." when you try to use it.

However, the "(SECURED)" text should also appear at the top of the window itself, not just the tab. But it's easily missed. You can also see that it's secured via the Properties dialog of the file, under the Security tab, but that is also quite hidden and not very known to most users.

Regarding #7. That already exists. The author could have decided to prevent editing, but allow commenting, which would have allowed you to place a stamp on the file. They decided not to do that, so the application enforces their will. But it is possible.

[dw24154351]

Thanks for pointing out #7

Surprising that the level of Acrobat Pro restrictions is not fine-grained to just allow changing commenting only. The allowed list under document security doesn't suggest any form of grouping.

Commenting, filling in form fields and signing existing signature fields are all lumped together as one option in the pop up menu.

I can imagine somebody saying that they won't enable commenting because it enables other things.... 

Maybe at an API level in an upstream tool you can just enabled commenting. 

[try67 · Accepted solution]

Not really. You can't enable commenting without also enabling filling in form fields. If you don't want the user to do the latter then just don't add the fields in the first place. And signing signature fields is just another type of filling in form fields.