Use OmniGraffle to complete PDF documents

Apr 06, '05 09:30:00AM

Contributed by: phredator

As a contractor, I frequently have the need to provide signed documents to clients, e.g. W9 forms, contracts etc. I do not have a fax machine, nor do I want to deal with snail mail. Since my clients can usually send the necessary documents to me as a PDF file, all that is needed is a way to enter my data and signature "in" the form, and send the completed form as a PDF. I guess you can do this if you own the full Acrobat app, but I don't want to buy it for this mundane use. The following is a means of accomplishing this with tools provided in Mac OS X, and a third-party application.

Many Macs come with the ever-lovely OmniGraffle flow charting/charting application. This many-talented program is my tool of choice for this task. If your Mac didn't come with OmniGraffle, you can download a trial version from their website.

Here's what I do to fill in PDFs using OmniGraffle.

  1. Open a new OmniGraffle document.
  2. In the pages palette, set the number of pages required in the vertical page count field.
  3. In this palette, set all the margins to zero, since the document usually consists of full 8.5x11in. pages.
  4. Drag the PDF onto your OmniGraffle document, and align it to fit precisely in the the document.
  5. In the layers palette, add a new layer on top of the PDF layer.
  6. Under the tools menu, turn off "snap to grid".
  7. Using the text "T" tool, place fields in the desired location over the PDF, and enter the appropriate text. I find the default 12 pt size to be usable for most forms. Then nudge the text into the exact position. (Saving often, Duh!).
The trickiest part is the signature. Which I handle as follows.
  1. Scan your signature at a relatively large size. At least at the largest size you ever expect to need, but ideally a bit larger. (Everyone should have a digital version of their signature!)
  2. In your graphics tool of choice, convert your scanned image to a transperant GIF. This is so that your fancy, flamboyant signature can extend beyond the signature line/field and appear natural. You may have to fuss with this to reduce the amount of white anti-aliasing around your signature. An added advantage of making it transparent is that your signature is merged with the background document, making it more immune to malicious copying and re-use.
  3. Drag your signature.gif onto your OmniGraffle document, and resize it (with shift-down to maintain the aspect ratio), and place it where you want it.
For tax forms, such as W9s which you may need to reuse often, save this .graffle file for future reuse with a different date in its name.

Finally, select Print, and choose "Save as PDF..." and voila! You now have a completed, signed form or contract in PDF form. Email it to your client, and wait for the big checks to come in. If you receive the document in Word rather than PDF, start this process by printing the Word document to PDF, and then follow the steps above.

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