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Show HN: Make Your PDF Look Scanned

scanyourpdf.com

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Re: Show HN: Make Your PDF Look Scanned

#171
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "required"? Like, they wouldn't accept a clean, non-scanned copy? That's absurd.

Some types of documents/deeds do require "wet ink" signatures by law - https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/support-services/advice/articl...

But scanning these documents defeats the point. The law isn't saying "it must be signed with wet ink, but after that a scanned copy is sufficient", it says you need the actual paper with the wet ink signature.

> If you’re a solicitor responsible for registration, you need the other parties' solicitors, on closing, to send you the wet-ink signed parts of the documents. You’ll only proceed when you have the wet-ink signed documents, not when you have seen electronic images of them.

Re: Show HN: Make Your PDF Look Scanned

#172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rate limiting (if by that you mean at the firewall or the web server) is not the way to do it. That shifts the problem somewhere else in the stack, into a place that isn't under version control in the same repository. Consider: If you moved this on to another server, would you remember to enable rate limiting there? If someone else uses your code, will they know to enable rate limiting? Rate limiting isn't a bad idea…

I know this doesn't really add much to the discussion, I just wanted to let you know I really, really appreciate HN over other sites for comments like this. Ones that help you learn something new in a really intuitive and on top of that "non-condescending" way (for lack of a better word I can think of). Thank you!

Hey, I know I was not as positive & encouraging as I should have been initially, hence the edit on the end. But thank you for the kind words mate, that actually means a lot to me. <3

Re: Show HN: Make Your PDF Look Scanned

#173
post #59

Is this project different in some way from many already existing solutions that do the same? I like that it is open source and in theory possible to self host since I really wouldn't want to upload my documents anywhere. I would really like to know if a similar solution exists that is very easy to run locally or if it runs in the browser it does everything client-side?

I like to think this solution is way more friendly than using terminal for 99% of people. What others have suggested is to develop a stand-alone app for more private documents which can't be sent somewhere else

I didn't mean the terminal. Typing "make pdf look like scanned" into google returns me many websites with same functionality.

Re: Show HN: Make Your PDF Look Scanned

#175
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd recommend GS after ImageMagick as IM will hugely increase the size of the output due to rasterization!

But isn't rasterization necessary for this deception to work? Unless there's some magical scanner out there that's outputting vector images.

Whether leaving as vector works depends on how much your recipients care to investigate.

Re: Show HN: Make Your PDF Look Scanned

#176
post #2

I recently came across a couple of institutions which required me to print, sign and send back a couple of documents. COVID and all of that means I don't have a printer at home. I made this website by inspiration from other posts here and now it's free to use! Code is open source so feel free to comment any new ideas or things you would like includede!

I am fairly close to various expat communities in my city. "Where can I print this document" is a very common question. It also affects tourists who need printed tickets that are only available a few days before their flight.

Re: Show HN: Make Your PDF Look Scanned

#177
post #134
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than making a COMPACT version, your command created a file over twice the size of one created using the aforementioned convert letter.pdf -colorspace gray \( +clone -blur 0x1 \) +swap -compose divide -composite -linear-stretch 5%x0% -rotate 1.5 as-scanned.pdf However, that may be a useful feature, since many users end up inadvertently creating very large PDFs when scanning.

If you lower the resolution those auto-scanning services that does OCR on the documents will get problems converting the tex back to normal text. Which might or might not be the point of doing this in the first place... :-)

Just remember that if you make it harder for OCR to produce accurate text from an image, you also make it harder for blind people to read it.
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