
Show HN: PDF Otter – Fill in PDFs Online and API - mariusz331
https://www.pdfotter.com
======
CGamesPlay
I work at a company that has a pretty comprehensive suite of PDF templates we
fill out, so if you want some feedback from someone who would have been a
perfect customer 3 years ago:

The biggest thing that costs us time is schema validation. We ended up
building a tool that rejects uploads if the text fields don't match, or if you
forget to include a radio option, etc. It also has "recommended" fields which
issue warnings if they are not implemented.

Radio options, checkboxes, and images (for signatures) would be a welcome
addition that I didn't see in the editor.

The documentation / online demo doesn't make it clear how I would go from
fields -> API access (because how do I name the fields?).

[append]

An API endpoint to get the unfilled PDF template would also be good,
especially if bundled with a client library that handled the call to pdftk.
Some of our documents are HIPAA and I don't want to deal with having the
client data leave our machines.

~~~
mariusz331
This is great feedback. I really like your ideas on schema validation. We
faced a similar problem at my last company and I have some thoughts to improve
it with PDF Otter. Thank you!

------
mariusz331
Hi HN. I built PDF Otter to solve a headache my last company faced. We needed
to fill in PDF contracts repeatedly and there was no service out there that
did that, so we had to build something in-house. We couldn't use
[hello/docu]sign because sending users there lowered our conversion rates.

The PDF Otter API powers the PDF editor advertised on the homepage. The editor
is simple but I think its better than similar services because you don't need
to sign up/pay to fill-in and download your PDF. I think there's a lot of
potential out there for apps built on the API. Feel free to reach out to me at
mariusz [at] pdfotter [dot] com if you have any questions or ideas!

~~~
nemo1618
Any plans to allow inserting images (i.e. a signature)? Filling out PDFs is a
huge pain for me and I'd love to replace it with this, but I need to insert
handwritten signatures, not just text.

~~~
mariusz331
Yes! I'll be adding a way to apply images to PDFs soon. Do you usually have an
image of your signature handy on your computer or would you create one if the
image feature was available? Another thought I had was maybe adding a
"signature pad" where users can scribble their signature and I'd save it for
them to use repeatedly. I'd love your thoughts on this.

~~~
nemo1618
I have an photo of a handwritten signature that I use in Adobe. They do a
pretty good job of extracting the signature contours from the photo. I've also
seen a (much crappier) version of this on my mobile banking app, for
processing photos of checks. They basically just blow up the contrast until
only the blackest part of the image remains. It looks awful, but it might be a
good place to iterate from. If you implement something more sophisticated, it
definitely makes sense to save it on the backend so you don't have to redo the
(possibly expensive/slow) image processing operation every time.

A signature pad could work too; I think HelloSign has something like that. But
it's not a great solution if you don't have a tablet, since it's _really_ hard
to draw a proper signature with a mouse. Honestly, even just adding a
"handwriting font" might be good enough for most circumstances. Most of the
document signing services provide this, and it could be implemented very
quickly with minimal changes to your API.

If I were you, I would probably start with a handwriting font, and add hand-
drawn signature support afterward. I would also look into what the law says
about this sort of thing. I know that services like HelloSign require that you
authorize them to use your signature in a legally-binding manner. But I don't
know if that regulation would apply to your service, since your service is a
lot more bare-bones. For example, you don't store the PDFs indefinitely, and
you don't coordinate any sort of multi-party signature operation; that all
happens out-of-band. So you might be in the clear.

~~~
mariusz331
Thanks for all this great info. We do have a font option called 'Dancing
Script' available now which can make your text look like a signature. I'll do
some more research on e-signatures, though. I assume there's more to it than
just changing your text's font.

~~~
kanzure
well, you should consider doing actual cryptographic signatures over the
document, plus timestamping like via
[https://opentimestamps.org/](https://opentimestamps.org/)

------
iloveluce
We (Quiki YC W17) are currently using Otter to make our entire
contract/agreement process self service, and it's been great. I can answer any
questions from a customer perspective.

------
cmurf
The forms extensions in PDF are a problem in FOSS software. I'm wondering if
this tool does, or can export the downloaded (edited) PDF as PDF/A-2 (or
PDF/A-3) conforming? Because a problem is having PDFs you've filled out that
aren't archival documents; and further to that a nice option would be support
for embedded digital signatures.

~~~
mariusz331
Thanks for the ideas! The downloaded PDFs are not in a PDF/A format. I
understand the need for a feature like this - I have used some government
services that only allow submitted PDFs in archivable format. The commercial
PDF->PDF/A libraries I came across are pretty pricey. Do you know of any open
source alternatives?

~~~
cmurf
I don't. If they don't exist or aren't really good (fast, well documented,
good APIs, bindings available for various languages) then I think that's
something that needs to be pitched to _hand waive_. Maybe the Free Software
Foundation has ideas, or the Document Foundation, and then also various
governments.

That so many governments use, and insist their citizens use PDFs, it's really
not OK for us to have to depend on proprietary closed source software. I have
zero problem with making a profit on great tools and infrastructure and
services, but the foundation needs to be owned by the public.

------
brryant
This is ridiculously cheap for the value this provides. 10x it!

~~~
Cshelton
Agreed. I'd start at 1,000 PDFs/month at $100 after a smaller free tier.

Actually, add a paid tier below that, 500 PDFs/m for $55.

------
ijustdontcare
I don't get it. What advantage does this service have over using a pdf library
to insert additional text? Why do I need an external server for this text
insertion task?

~~~
mariusz331
You can use a library to insert text in a PDF but you need to figure out at
what coordinates to position the text and how you want the text styled. If you
are constantly adding PDF templates, this is cumbersome work. If you don't
have a tool for figuring out the coordinates (like the editor on
pdfotter.com), your developers will have to do this. The last company I worked
at faced this exact problem and it took us hours to add PDF templates to the
system.

~~~
rubidium
You do have a strong competitor in this space. Adobe. Which is admittedly
costly for the the pro version, but can't be ignored. Why use PDF otter over
them?

~~~
mariusz331
For filling in individual PDFs, yes, Adobe wins. However, I'm using the editor
on my site to show off the PDF Otter API which helps you fill-in PDFs at
scale. That's a tool that Adobe doesn't provide and how PDF Otter will earn
money. I'm sorry that it's poorly advertised. I'm working on improving the
homepage's copy and making it easier to transition from the demo to using the
API.

------
config_yml
This is something I expected smallpdf.com to have, since they have a great
suite of pdf tools. I just checked and indeed they are running a beta on their
Edit PDF feature now, which is similar to your editor. However the API aspect
is a big plus on your side. The output from Smallpdf is more precise though.

------
marcrosoft
Raise the price and make the free tier run out at 500 total (not/month) PDFs.
Send out emails asking for CC when users hit 250, 350, 400 etc. If they hit
500 + grace, cut service.

------
dsr_
It says it's secure.

No privacy policy. Nothing except "we delete your PDFs after 24 hours".

No security guarantee.

No performance bond.

(Do I expect that for free? No. But I expect the documentation to be there.)

------
gallito89
Love that you don't need a sign-in for the demo, had a co-worker ask me about
a service to solve this exact problem last week.

~~~
mariusz331
Thanks! That feature will never require sign-up. I think it's a good way to
show off what the API can do.

~~~
gallito89
Could also potentially monetize it by charging beyond X fills/mo using the
browser version (tracked by IP so you group together offices).

Lots of small law offices, insurance agencies, etc. that I bet you could get
using it.

Would also recommend lowering the free # of API usages to ~100 or something :)

------
evanjonr
I've been after something like this for a while. It would be nice if you could
position fields with x and y coords. So you can line things up easier.

Also being able to preview text settings as you create templates would be
nice.

------
AHatLikeThat
Looks great, but where is your privacy notice? Contact information?

~~~
mariusz331
Thanks! I'm working on drafting a privacy notice. You can contact us at
help@pdfotter.com.

------
aargh_aargh
Tried it but the positioning was off by about 1 cm in the produced PDF.

You could add alignment tools for multiple fields - look at Inkscape for
inspiration.

~~~
mariusz331
Thanks for the suggestion on alignment. I've been hearing that feedback from
other users and I'll add some tools for it.

I've tested the editor again because a 1cm offset is unacceptable. It looks
like the field boxes (the transparent blue or orange rectangles you can drag
and resize) appear in the correct spots on the PDF. If the text is too large
to fit in the rectangle, we shrink it to fit. What might be going on is my
backend is in disagreement with the frontend about what font size to use if we
need to shrink the text. Then a larger than normal offset could appear on the
right-hand side of the text. I'm working on fixing that. But rest assured that
the field boxes are put in the correct place on the PDF.

------
michaelmior
Looks great! It would be _very_ helpful to be able to rename and delete
templates, even if only on the web interface.

~~~
mariusz331
Thanks Michael! I'll let you know when you can delete/rename templates (should
be soon).

~~~
michaelmior
I see it live now. Awesome! Thanks :)

------
aphextron
This is fantastic, nice work. I can save myself from ever installing Acrobat
again.

------
mxuribe
Seems like a great service!

------
cmurf
What about an option to delete documents in less than 24 hours?

~~~
mariusz331
Providing more flexibilty with deleting documents is on my roadmap but I can't
get to it today. If there's a sensitive document you want deleted now, please
reach out to me at mariusz [at] pdfotter [dot] com and I'll manually delete
it.

