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Integrating SetaPDF-Stamper using PHP

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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 […]

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PDF Embeds with Adobe SDK and PDFObject

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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 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 […]

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Bridging the Gap between PHP 5.3 and 8.2

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This week I got finally 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, […]

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Shortcode for stamping Woo product variation

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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 […]

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Comparing the Best PDF Watermarkers for WooCommerce

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The two best plugins available for WooCommerce PDF file download watermarking/passwording are WooCommerce PDF Watermark and PDF Ink (sold here). If you’re considering purchasing one or the other, this post will clearly show you which is the better choice — by far. Both plugins have been available for many years, both plugins perform the same essential tasks, and yet they are quite different under the hood. They offer different features, and at different price points. What’s under the hood: Both plugins use free, open-source PDF manipulation libraries to accomplish passwording and watermarking. WooCommerce’s offering uses FPDI to parse PDFs and FPDF to re-write them.As of October 2023, WooCommerce is using […]

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Invisible Watermarks and Other Ways to Protect Your PDFs

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PDFs are a fantastic way to share documents – they preserve formatting, are widely compatible, and can even be compressed for easy transmission. But what if that PDF contains sensitive or monetized information? The Portable Document Format (PDF) offers some security, which when stacked can be quite effective. These include: Watermarks: A Visual Deterrent A watermark (also called a stamp) is usually a semi-transparent image or text stamped onto the background of each page in a document. The watermark can be your company logo, a confidentiality notice, or even a name or # copies authorized, or a copyright notice. While watermarks can’t completely prevent copying, they do make unauthorized distribution […]

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Unique Stamp/Password For Each WooCommerce Product PDF

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A customer wrote with a neato request last month. If one WooCommerce product had several PDFs, and wasn’t a variable product, how could each PDF in the list be watermarked differently from the others? There is no setting for that inside PDF Ink because WooCommerce hasn’t exactly made that function easily possible, and also because it somehow hadn’t been requested until last month. That’s sort of amazing considering how long the plugin has been around! Anyway, it was a good request and so we added a filter hook called ‘pdfink_woo_filter_settings‘. (This hook replaces the ‘wwpdf_filter_settings_array’ in WaterWoo PDF Premium, with identical arguments.) Filtering Settings Because WooCommerce — unlike Easy Digital […]

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