Workflow for Signing PDF's on Android tablet
I recently accepted a new job. Instead of printing out all of the documents I need to sign, signing them, scanning them, then emailing them back to the HR department, I used Adobe Reader to sign them on my tablet as an annotation, then "print" them to a PDF file.
The problem was, the HR department was expecting scans, not annotated PDF files. In addition, Adobe Reader would crash whenever I tried to print to a PDF, leaving just an empty file with nothing in it. I discovered that Google Drive PDF Reader, an app part of the Google Drive suite of apps, would print PDF's to PDF's with the annotations intact. To my surprise, and eventually delight, I discovered that the printed PDF's were "rasterized", meaning that instead of text in the file it was just an image of the text. This was perfect for me since this simulated the scanned files HR was expecting. While the resolution wasn't very high it was good enough for what I needed.
While I like Adobe Reader on Android, it has a few annoying "features" or lack thereof that I have been trying to work around. First of all it can't annotate PDF's stored on a memory card due to higher security features of Android 4.4 and later. While it is not impossible in general to write to files on an SD card, an app like Reader has to get permission from the user to access a particular file or folder on the card, increasing security by restricting the files an app has access too. Reader doesn't do this and just complains that the file is "read only". Also, I store my files in Google Drive while Reader only supports Adobe's Document Cloud and Dropbox. I am not willing to switch.
I set up a complicated syncing method that downloads my PDF's to my table and uploads any changes to Google Drive, but this was cumbersome and not an ideal solution. Plus it meant that ALL of my PDF library had to be on my device's internal memory.
I have since discovered a new PDF reader app called Xodo. It can access my files on Google Drive, but only gets permission one at a time. Many apps simply ask for permission to access ALL the files which makes me nervous. I like that the app is only asking for permission to the files the app needs.
It also can annotate files on the SD card, asking for the permissions as I mentioned above instead of through up their hands like the Adobe app did. While this feature is now moot for me since the app can access Google Drive directly, I am glad to have an app that does this properly.
The annotation features of Xodo are also top notch. The sketch feature seems to be more responsive and accurate than Adobe's (I can underline text with my rubber tipped stylus, a function I had given up trying to do in Reader). I also feel like the whole app performs better even on low end hardware.
So, back to the main point of this article. I wanted to integrate Xodo into the document signing workflow. This was initially easy, simply replacing Adobe Reader with Xodo and using Google Drive PDF Reader to do the printing. However, I wanted a bit more control of the quality of the resultant rasterized PDF's. I discovered that Xodo doesn't crash when printing to PDF but does "flatten" the annotations so they are just a part of the PDF and no longer editable in simple PDF readers. I found another app called X2IMG that will convert PDF's to PNG image files. While it doesn't give the level of control in the quality that I was expecting, it is enough. I am able to convert these printed PDF's into a folder of PNG's. I then go back to Xodo and create a new PDF file using the "from Documents" rather than "from Image" option. This lets me select all of those PNG's using the file browser instead of the image gallery and convert them to a rasterized PDF file.
Maybe this is a lot of steps and there may be a way to streamline this even more. But for me and my purposes this suffices, actually makes me excited and a little giddy. I am just glad my wife knew I was this much of a geek when she married me.
The problem was, the HR department was expecting scans, not annotated PDF files. In addition, Adobe Reader would crash whenever I tried to print to a PDF, leaving just an empty file with nothing in it. I discovered that Google Drive PDF Reader, an app part of the Google Drive suite of apps, would print PDF's to PDF's with the annotations intact. To my surprise, and eventually delight, I discovered that the printed PDF's were "rasterized", meaning that instead of text in the file it was just an image of the text. This was perfect for me since this simulated the scanned files HR was expecting. While the resolution wasn't very high it was good enough for what I needed.
While I like Adobe Reader on Android, it has a few annoying "features" or lack thereof that I have been trying to work around. First of all it can't annotate PDF's stored on a memory card due to higher security features of Android 4.4 and later. While it is not impossible in general to write to files on an SD card, an app like Reader has to get permission from the user to access a particular file or folder on the card, increasing security by restricting the files an app has access too. Reader doesn't do this and just complains that the file is "read only". Also, I store my files in Google Drive while Reader only supports Adobe's Document Cloud and Dropbox. I am not willing to switch.
I set up a complicated syncing method that downloads my PDF's to my table and uploads any changes to Google Drive, but this was cumbersome and not an ideal solution. Plus it meant that ALL of my PDF library had to be on my device's internal memory.
I have since discovered a new PDF reader app called Xodo. It can access my files on Google Drive, but only gets permission one at a time. Many apps simply ask for permission to access ALL the files which makes me nervous. I like that the app is only asking for permission to the files the app needs.It also can annotate files on the SD card, asking for the permissions as I mentioned above instead of through up their hands like the Adobe app did. While this feature is now moot for me since the app can access Google Drive directly, I am glad to have an app that does this properly.
The annotation features of Xodo are also top notch. The sketch feature seems to be more responsive and accurate than Adobe's (I can underline text with my rubber tipped stylus, a function I had given up trying to do in Reader). I also feel like the whole app performs better even on low end hardware.
So, back to the main point of this article. I wanted to integrate Xodo into the document signing workflow. This was initially easy, simply replacing Adobe Reader with Xodo and using Google Drive PDF Reader to do the printing. However, I wanted a bit more control of the quality of the resultant rasterized PDF's. I discovered that Xodo doesn't crash when printing to PDF but does "flatten" the annotations so they are just a part of the PDF and no longer editable in simple PDF readers. I found another app called X2IMG that will convert PDF's to PNG image files. While it doesn't give the level of control in the quality that I was expecting, it is enough. I am able to convert these printed PDF's into a folder of PNG's. I then go back to Xodo and create a new PDF file using the "from Documents" rather than "from Image" option. This lets me select all of those PNG's using the file browser instead of the image gallery and convert them to a rasterized PDF file.
Maybe this is a lot of steps and there may be a way to streamline this even more. But for me and my purposes this suffices, actually makes me excited and a little giddy. I am just glad my wife knew I was this much of a geek when she married me.
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