Imagine having to add your name and the current date to 60 PDF files every single day.
Sounds tedious, right?
That was exactly the problem I recently helped a user solve at work.
What did not quite work
My first thought was to use an image or a signature in Adobe Acrobat Pro, but neither seemed to solve the problem of having a date that updates automatically. A static image of yesterday’s date is fine once; it is a nuisance when the calendar moves on and the same files need today’s date again.
A dynamic custom stamp
Then I discovered something new to me: Adobe Acrobat’s Stamp feature supports dynamic fields using JavaScript.
To be honest, I had never tried this before. Initially I thought it would have the same limitation, but after looking into it further I realised I could create a custom stamp that automatically inserts a fixed name followed by the current date.
The JavaScript for the date field turned out to be surprisingly simple:
event.value = util.printd("dd/mm/yyyy", new Date)
After some setup and testing on the user’s own computer, I got it working. Stamp files can also be created on another machine and shared across, but in this case building it directly where it would be used kept things simple. Now, instead of manually entering the details for every PDF, the user can simply apply the stamp.
The accompanying walkthrough shows a custom stamp with a fixed name plus that dynamic date field (illustration only — not a real workplace identity).
A happy user, less repetitive work, and one new thing learned for me. Not a bad day.
Adobe’s official walkthrough is here: Create custom dynamic stamps in Acrobat (there is also an older KB article, Create a custom dynamic stamp using Acrobat).
Takeaway
It is a good reminder that sometimes the solution is not another tool or a complicated automation. It might just be a feature in an application you are already using.
Originally shared on LinkedIn.