"flattening" ouput pdf

[Richmond]

On 26/04/14 22:08, Dr. Hawkins wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 11:55 AM, Richmond <richmondmathewson at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> I'm being a bit goofy: I don't quite understand what you mean by:
>>
>> *court*
>>
>>
> The United States Bankruptcy Court.  We don't file on paper anymore, but by
> uploading PDF
>
>
>
>> or the court stamp.
>>
>> Would I be correct in thinking that the court stamp might be a transparent
>> image of
>> the court's seal overlaid on a text?
>>
> There are a couple of ways it happens.  Here's a link to a typical document
> http://www.gordonsilver.com/_public_filings/Dkt11ExParteAppforOSTtoHearEmergencyMtnforOrderDirecting.pdf
>
> (I can't link to my own, even though they're public records, as the NV bar
> has ruled client identity confidential!)
>
> There is a similar overstamp with judge's signature on orders.
>
>
>> If that is what you want, then surely the thing might be to group the seal
>> image over the text field
>> and then export the whole thing as a PDF: therefore getting a text with
>> stamp overlaid and
>> unselectable text all in one.
>>
> The court affixes the  blue print; not me.  But I've seen a couple that can
> still have fields edited or boxes clicked!
>

Well, the first thing I notice is that I can select, copy and paste what 
I like into a text editor.

The second thing I can see is what looks like an inkstamp (the notary's).

The whole thing looks extremely primitive: that is to say it is a 
document prepared,
printed out for muggins1 to sign, muggins2 to sign and handstamp.

For the sake of argument; here in good old, bottom of the sack Bulgaria, my
accountant who does all my tax stuff, social security, healthcare 
payments and
so on, has an electronic signature that resides on her computer, she has 
a VPN to the tax
people. This does not stop me having to get wrist cramp signing about a 
dozen documents
each month and stamping the things with my hand operated inkstamp: but 
that is because
I operate a one-man language centre rather than a socking great lawyer's 
office. My lawyer
has both an electronic signature and an electronic stamp (which is 
basically an image of an
old-fashioned handstamp which is overlaid onto her legal documents).

My experience (limited) has been with sending PDF documents to Germany 
(my elder son is at Uni' there, my younger at High School), and being 
told I had to send them unalterable electronic documents.

I did this in just about the most primitive way imaginable . . .

I collected up all the PDF documnets from the various tax agencies and 
so forth over here: they all had selectable and copiable text: so 
exported each one, page-by-page to JPG images; assembled them in 
LibreOffice and printed to PDF.

Subsequently I had to prepare some documents that came fro myself alone: 
I just fired up my G3 iMac
(Mac OS 9), typed the documents in Appleworks and exported as PDF: where 
I got unselectable PDFs.

The "print cardName" will produce editable stuff.

The script I had in one of my previous postings produces non-editable text:

on mouseUp
    ask file "Save as:" with "Print.pdf"
    put it into tFileName
    if tFileName is empty then exit to top
    set the printerOutput to "file:" & tFileName
    revShowPrintDialog false, false
    revPrintField the long name of fld "fff"
end mouseUp

If you are using Macintosh (and your mention of 'Preview' makes me thing 
you are); that should
produce pdf documents you can read in Preview but cannot muck about with.

If you are using a fairly old version of Windows (Vista backwards) then 
I have a feeling Pirnt
to PDF won't work.

Richmond.