Blog

December 3rd, 2025

When you pair SetaPDF‑Stamper with PDF Ink, a whole new world of “smart PDFs” opens up. Imagine every external link inside a downloadable PDF guide instantly morphing into a personalized gateway—complete with affiliate codes, UTM tags, or a secret user token—without ever touching the original source file. With just a few lines of PHP, you can walk the document’s page tree, sniff out each PDF UriAction, and splice a custom query string onto the URL. We'll show you how.

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November 4th, 2025

Why purchase software from an indie developer? Here we provide an insight into the "little guy's" fight for survival - and relevancy - in a market that favors big brands. This blog post details how PDF Ink has one-upped other PDF watermark plugins over the years and yet struggles to gain ground - from a unique *ethical* standpoint. Nevermind it has a ton more features and great support, ya-dee-ya... the playing field is not level!

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October 5th, 2025

WooCommerce order numbers often appear inconsistent due to WordPress's auto-increment ID system. Sequential numbering plugins create a proxy mapping for clean, consecutive order numbers. PDF Ink takes this further by allowing easy watermarking with dynamic tags like [ORDERNUMBER], enabling shops to generate professionally branded, personalized downloadable PDFs with minimal effort.

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September 20th, 2025

PDF metadata can signal a request not to scrape content, primarily via the W3C's TDMRep protocol. This functions as a polite request or social contract that compliant AI bots might respect. Malicious or non-compliant scrapers will simply ignore the metadata. To truly block access, technical measures are necessary. Read about using PDF Ink to implement both the "polite request" and technical measures -- and keep AI out of your content!

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August 8th, 2025

If you are considering adding dynamically-created barcodes to your PDF files upon purchase/download, why not also add shape and color? PDF Ink allows for 41 different types of barcode, and in any shape, size or color. Read this tutorial about how to fancy barcode - easily - with PDF Ink.

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July 20th, 2025

Why a PDF reader matters (even if you only want to add a watermark or a password) When you take an existing PDF—say, a customer invoice, a contract, or a product brochure—and want to modify it, the first step is to read the file into PHP memory. Another word for read is parse. The PDF is parsed into PHP memory. A PDF reader does exactly that: it parses the raw byte stream, builds an internal representation, and tries to make sense of the PDF syntax (objects, streams, cross‑reference tables, etc.). If you open any PDF in a plain‑text editor (TextEdit, BBEdit, Notepad…) you’ll see a mixture of human‑readable keywords (/Type, /Pages, /Resources) and binary blobs. […]

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July 7th, 2025

If your online shop needs to personalize EPUB ebook files upon customer download, PDF Ink (for PHP and WordPress) now has that capacity. Add a dynamic, styled text stamp anywhere on the EPUB page, with your customer's name, email, phone number and order information... or just a license notice if you prefer.

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June 13th, 2025

Many content creators overlook the potential of using their PDF files to enhance visibility on search engines, not realizing that search engines will parse accessible PDF files for content. There's a whole untapped source of web content, right under your nose! At PDF Ink we spend a lot of time promoting PDF security, but sometimes PDF content can be too secure. If you are trying to generate leads or improve SEO, it might be time to share sample PDF files.

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May 14th, 2025

Almost all PDF watermarking plugins for WordPress lose fidelity when it comes to forms, layers, and table of contents (TOC). This means you can gain a PDF password and stamping, but lose original PDF functionality. Using PDF Ink and SetaPDF-Stamper together is the solution to this problem.

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May 5th, 2025

We often handle a deluge of files for a single project—contracts, spreadsheets, presentations, licenses, and source data all floating around in different emails, shared drives, or chat threads. What if all of that could live in one self-contained PDF “package?” This isn’t just a hypothetical scenario. File stream embedding, an advanced PDF feature, allows businesses to create intelligent, all-in-one digital containers. This approach streamlines workflows, enhances branding and brand loyalty, enhances compliance, and ensures data integrity. The Power of the “All-in-One” Document Below we list some practical, real-world uses for the powerful PDF stream embedding & file attachment capability: User Manuals and Product Information: A product manual PDF can embed supplementary content like software installers, […]

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April 22nd, 2025

Explore the intricacies of PDF file encryption, protections, and password security. How does this process function, and is it effective? Discover the best methods to safeguard your intellectual property by stamping your PDF, setting a password, and potentially restricting permissions such as printing, copying, and more.

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March 12th, 2025

A case study showing how to get a customer's WooCommerce order information printed on their PDF during download, to discourage file sharing & theft. In this case, we have a sheet music distributor who wishes to stamp the purchasing choir name on each page.

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February 13th, 2025

When altering a PDF file using TCPDF or SetaPDF-Stamper, we have the choice to put the new content above or below the existing content. Default for PDF Ink is above. This post will discuss ramifications and process for putting added content below existing content on the page.

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January 23rd, 2025

Look ma! No WordPress required! In the documentation for PDF Ink, it is explained how to write a simple script to fire up the PDF Ink PHP library and stamp a PDF file. The library is written in such a way that it can be used without WordPress, and any one of six different PDF-manipulation library sets can be used. This is helpful when one set doesn’t work with a specific PDF, but another set might. As always, when PDF Ink fails for any specific PDF, the solution is to either attempt to repair the PDF — or upgrade to a better library, like SetaPDF-Stamper. The example in the documentation is for TCPDF/FPDF, so here […]

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January 14th, 2025

PDF Ink is a plugin for WordPress (and standalone PHP library) for PDF file manipulation... and it just dropped January 2025! Celebrate with us by trying it out!

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December 22nd, 2024

Adobe SDK The JavaScript-based Adobe PDF Embed API allows us to embed PDF viewers, showing manipulated (encrypted/passworded and/or stamped) PDFs on our WordPress site using PDF Ink shortcodes. These embeds can be highly customized using filter hooks, becoming handsome and useful interfaces for your users. It is up to you and/or your developer to familiarize yourself with use of the Adobe SDK API and the Adobe SDK PDF appearance/function control options in order to customize your embeds further. Using a default PDF Ink embed shortcode with its defaults might be just fine for your purpose. But it isn’t too hard to customize using PHP. SDK parameters are filtered by PDF Ink in the following call: […]

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November 13th, 2024

PDFs with layers are a powerful tool with various applications, from architectural designs to GIS to sewing patterns. The ability to manipulate these PDF files without compromising their functionality is crucial for user experience, professional standards, and design integrity. PDF Ink with the SetaPDF-Stamper addon stands out by ensuring that layer, form and table-of-content functionality are preserved while adding watermarks and passwords to files. This makes PDF Ink the ideal choice for anyone who distributes on PDFs with advanced features.

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October 10th, 2024

With PDF Ink you can practically create a second dimension of content on top of your existing content! Multiple varying watermarks can be added to each PDF page: images, barcodes, and/or text. But also, those watermarks can be skipped on specific pages if desired. Read about how to do that with PDF Ink for WordPress, using settings fields and WP filter hooks.

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August 4th, 2024

This week I got involved with maintaining the languishing TCPDF library on Github. Long overdue. Embarrassingly long overdue, since I’ve based one of my businesses on this open source gem for nearly ten years now. The author, Nicola Asuni, has been working for many years on a successor to TCPDF, but it is stalled… likely due to the usual reasons: life and cash. I can relate. I’ve been sitting on a huge WP plugin project for two years now, desperately trying to move it forward while life happens and I’m forced to prioritize support for my paying customers. A couple years ago an eager young programmer, William Desportes, hopped onto the TCPDF GitHub and made […]

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November 13th, 2023

Here is some PHP code for WordPress/WooCommerce which will make PDF Ink recognize TWO custom shortcodes in any watermark content: [VARIATION_DESC] and [VARIATION_NAME]. These translate to variation description and variation name, both aspects of a WooCommerce variable product. This code (everything above the dashed line) should get added anywhere in your functions.php file. If unsure where to put it, add it at the end of the file. You could also add the snippet using the WordPress plugin called “CODE SNIPPETS” (front and back end). This snippet development was sponsored by customer Michael. Thanks Michael! For reference (maybe for people migrating from WaterWoo to PDF Ink) here is a snippet which would have worked with WaterWoo:

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