4 ms·

I’m all for fun side projects, so don’t take this the wrong way. Does this have a practical use case? Like are people actually wanting to make their PDFs less l

I’m all for fun side projects, so don’t take this the wrong way. Does this have a practical use case? Like are people actually wanting to make their PDFs less legible? Usually I’m trying to do the opposite, clean up my scanned-in documents.

ktpsns 4mo ago
This is in fact useful for people who demand you to print out and sign contracts. Did so many times in the past, using some ghostscript+imagemagick scripting to avoid the cargo culturing.
laurencerowe 4mo ago
Sometimes companies demand you print/sign/scan a document.
pooploop64 4mo ago
I've been in situations where I had to supply a digital version of a signed document but the person asking for it required that it be physically printed off to be signed and then scanned back in. Some policy thing. I think it would technically be fraud to use this but that's one use I thought of. The description however seems like the creator just likes how scanned documents look. They describe it like how analogue music fans describe vinyl records. I guess everything is nostalgic to someone out there eventually.
- monkpit 4mo ago
  How is it fraud? Who is being defrauded? What is the impact to the victim?
jhbadger 4mo ago
For some value of practical, I could see it being useful in making handouts for an RPG where the handout is supposed to be a photocopy of a section of some rare book the players need to scan for clues.
nutjob2 4mo ago
Typically when I send a form I will do as much as possible in a PDF editor, including the signature. Most of the world is in denial about how electronic documents, especially scanned ones, work, so you have to play along to stop them from getting upset.
BrandoElFollito 4mo ago
There are countries such as France that request plenty of nonsensical handwriting with some weird also handwritten formulas. This comes from the times where graphology was a big thing in France (you would usually be required to send a handwritten letter of motivation). Poland is also strong on that, requiring "readable handwritten signatures". This will end when the dinosaurs that still feel it is important go away.
PufPufPuf 4mo ago
I was actually required in the past to "print, sign and scan", and due to my lack of a printer I just took a picture of my signature and pasted it in. Nobody ever complained, but if they did, I imagine I'd rather use something like this than go to a copycenter to print a single sheet of paper to satisfy some arbitrary requirement.
gsinclair 4mo ago
I sometimes want to create PDFs that contain text (Python code) that is not selectable. I want my students to type it in, not copy and paste. I don’t know whether this tool enables that, but the idea is in the neighbourhood of “make it look scanned”.
- carstenhag 4mo ago
  iOS will natively let you select the text, as it does ocr on ever image. Maybe Android does the same.
  - 1e1a 4mo ago
    MacOS does this as well in Preview.
digitaltrees 4mo ago
Yes. Fraud. It makes a document look like it existed in physical form. Imagine for example a purchase agreement for a house that was physically scanned. You could change the signature to a different name and then make it look like it was original. I am not asserting the authors intent is to facilitate fraud or there isn’t any other practical use, but let’s not be naive and act like fraud isn’t a likely use. Before you downvote at least respond with why you think my analysis is wrong.
- bluebarbet 4mo ago
  It's not that you're wrong, but the fact that it would be fraud is farcical and needs to be challenged. My bank demands that I perform this ridiculous hoop-jumping. Like others here, I use ImageMagick hocus pocus to defeat them with trivial ease (a couple of times they complained so I tweaked the algo a bit and they were happy). The whole situation is beyond absurd. It's security theater in place of security.
  - digitaltrees 4mo ago
    This is fraud. Your are passing off a document as authentic by misleading use of visual artifacts to make the origin of the document appear different than reality. Just because you don’t like the security theatre does make it acceptable to misrepresent the origin of a document to satisfy the security requirements. And I gave a specific example, slipping a page into a document that wasn’t in the original and making it look like it belongs by making it look scanned. Imagine I changed the purchase price on your home to 10% of its value rather than the original agreed price and took it to court to enforce the purchase. This tech would make that appear more credible.
    - falsemyrmidon 4mo ago
      You could just as easily edit it, print it, then scan it again. This tech doesn't enable you to do anything you couldn't already do. The real problem is that written signatures are a poor form of authentication.
sowbug 4mo ago
Charles Schwab, the brokerage, didn't like that my signed form retitling an account looked too perfect (I had scanned my signature and then inserted the JPEG into their PDF form, which is absolutely 100% legal as a signature). So I printed the form out and sent them a picture of the printout. They didn't like that, either. So I moved my money out of the account. That worked fine.
- Symbiote 4mo ago
  What were they expecting? A letter sent by mail?
  - embedding-shape 4mo ago
    Bunch of places want it to "look like" you've printed the page, then signed it, then scanned it. If it doesn't "look like" that, they won't accept it. Makes no sense, but I've also encountered it a bunch of times myself too.
    - sowbug 4mo ago
      That's right. This requirement makes a little sense if you don't actually know the signer and could conceivably end up in court with a forensic handwriting analyst testifying whether the signature was a forgery. Anything involving notarization, for example, should pass that analysis. But for the other 99.99% of signatures in the world, any mark at all is fine, and insisting on more is wasteful bureaucracy.
    - bcraven 4mo ago
      They're called "wet signatures" "However, many jurisdictions still require a wet signature. For instance, in the US and Canada, notarized documents require signatures in wet ink. Similarly, documents in areas such as family law, wills, trusts, or banking also require physical signatures. In the UK, tax authorities require a wet signature for any tax documents filed by a British resident." https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/business/resources/wet-signature.html#when-do-you-need-a-wet-signature https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/business/resources/wet-signatu...

ktpsns 4mo ago

This is in fact useful for people who demand you to print out and sign contracts. Did so many times in the past, using some ghostscript+imagemagick scripting to avoid the cargo culturing.

laurencerowe 4mo ago

Sometimes companies demand you print/sign/scan a document.

pooploop64 4mo ago

I've been in situations where I had to supply a digital version of a signed document but the person asking for it required that it be physically printed off to be signed and then scanned back in. Some policy thing. I think it would technically be fraud to use this but that's one use I thought of. The description however seems like the creator just likes how scanned documents look. They describe it like how analogue music fans describe vinyl records. I guess everything is nostalgic to someone out there eventually.

monkpit 4mo ago
How is it fraud? Who is being defrauded? What is the impact to the victim?

jhbadger 4mo ago

For some value of practical, I could see it being useful in making handouts for an RPG where the handout is supposed to be a photocopy of a section of some rare book the players need to scan for clues.

nutjob2 4mo ago

Typically when I send a form I will do as much as possible in a PDF editor, including the signature. Most of the world is in denial about how electronic documents, especially scanned ones, work, so you have to play along to stop them from getting upset.

BrandoElFollito 4mo ago

There are countries such as France that request plenty of nonsensical handwriting with some weird also handwritten formulas. This comes from the times where graphology was a big thing in France (you would usually be required to send a handwritten letter of motivation). Poland is also strong on that, requiring "readable handwritten signatures". This will end when the dinosaurs that still feel it is important go away.

PufPufPuf 4mo ago

I was actually required in the past to "print, sign and scan", and due to my lack of a printer I just took a picture of my signature and pasted it in. Nobody ever complained, but if they did, I imagine I'd rather use something like this than go to a copycenter to print a single sheet of paper to satisfy some arbitrary requirement.

gsinclair 4mo ago

I sometimes want to create PDFs that contain text (Python code) that is not selectable. I want my students to type it in, not copy and paste. I don’t know whether this tool enables that, but the idea is in the neighbourhood of “make it look scanned”.

carstenhag 4mo ago
iOS will natively let you select the text, as it does ocr on ever image. Maybe Android does the same.
- 1e1a 4mo ago
  MacOS does this as well in Preview.

digitaltrees 4mo ago

Yes. Fraud. It makes a document look like it existed in physical form. Imagine for example a purchase agreement for a house that was physically scanned. You could change the signature to a different name and then make it look like it was original. I am not asserting the authors intent is to facilitate fraud or there isn’t any other practical use, but let’s not be naive and act like fraud isn’t a likely use. Before you downvote at least respond with why you think my analysis is wrong.

bluebarbet 4mo ago
It's not that you're wrong, but the fact that it would be fraud is farcical and needs to be challenged. My bank demands that I perform this ridiculous hoop-jumping. Like others here, I use ImageMagick hocus pocus to defeat them with trivial ease (a couple of times they complained so I tweaked the algo a bit and they were happy). The whole situation is beyond absurd. It's security theater in place of security.
- digitaltrees 4mo ago
  This is fraud. Your are passing off a document as authentic by misleading use of visual artifacts to make the origin of the document appear different than reality. Just because you don’t like the security theatre does make it acceptable to misrepresent the origin of a document to satisfy the security requirements. And I gave a specific example, slipping a page into a document that wasn’t in the original and making it look like it belongs by making it look scanned. Imagine I changed the purchase price on your home to 10% of its value rather than the original agreed price and took it to court to enforce the purchase. This tech would make that appear more credible.
  - falsemyrmidon 4mo ago
    You could just as easily edit it, print it, then scan it again. This tech doesn't enable you to do anything you couldn't already do. The real problem is that written signatures are a poor form of authentication.

sowbug 4mo ago

Charles Schwab, the brokerage, didn't like that my signed form retitling an account looked too perfect (I had scanned my signature and then inserted the JPEG into their PDF form, which is absolutely 100% legal as a signature). So I printed the form out and sent them a picture of the printout. They didn't like that, either. So I moved my money out of the account. That worked fine.

Symbiote 4mo ago
What were they expecting? A letter sent by mail?
- embedding-shape 4mo ago
  Bunch of places want it to "look like" you've printed the page, then signed it, then scanned it. If it doesn't "look like" that, they won't accept it. Makes no sense, but I've also encountered it a bunch of times myself too.
  - sowbug 4mo ago
    That's right. This requirement makes a little sense if you don't actually know the signer and could conceivably end up in court with a forensic handwriting analyst testifying whether the signature was a forgery. Anything involving notarization, for example, should pass that analysis. But for the other 99.99% of signatures in the world, any mark at all is fine, and insisting on more is wasteful bureaucracy.
  - bcraven 4mo ago
    They're called "wet signatures" "However, many jurisdictions still require a wet signature. For instance, in the US and Canada, notarized documents require signatures in wet ink. Similarly, documents in areas such as family law, wills, trusts, or banking also require physical signatures. In the UK, tax authorities require a wet signature for any tax documents filed by a British resident." https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/business/resources/wet-signature.html#when-do-you-need-a-wet-signature https://www.adobe.com/acrobat/business/resources/wet-signatu...