Stamping
Compared to the 3-Heights® Document Converter, stamping in the Conversion Service is much simpler:
- The functionality is more limited, while still covering the most common use cases.
- The configuration is easier to understand: no separate stamp configuration file is needed.
This means that for many existing stamp configurations, a one-to-one migration is not possible, but often a similar result can be achieved.
For more about stamping in the Conversion Service, see Configure stamping.
| Content Type | Conversion Service | 3-Heights® Document Converter |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Yes | Yes |
| Images | Yes | Yes |
| Shapes | No | Yes |
| Barcodes | Yes | Via image URL |
| Links | No | Yes |
| Compound content | No | Yes |
Document-level configuration
While the 3-Heights® Document Converter provides many options to configure the stamps on a document level, the Conversion Service can only apply stamps as page content on the first page of the document, the last page, or all pages.
| Feature | Conversion Service | 3-Heights® Document Converter |
|---|---|---|
| Apply as foreground content | Yes | Yes |
| Apply as background content | No | Yes |
| Apply as PDF annotation | No | Yes |
| Apply as layer (optional content) | No | Yes |
| Page selection | No | Yes |
| Modify existing stamp | No | Yes |
Layout configuration
The 3-Heights® Document Converter provides separate configuration settings for position and alignment that can be combined arbitrarily.
In the Conversion Service, the position and alignment of a stamp are linked: if the position is specified as a distance to a specific page border, the alignment is automatically chosen accordingly. For example, if the position is specified relative to the right and top border, the stamp is also aligned to the right and top.
| Feature | Conversion Service | 3-Heights® Document Converter |
|---|---|---|
| Position relative to borders | Yes | Yes |
| Alignment | Tied to relative position | Yes |
| Auto-detect page orientation | No | Yes |
| Scale relative to page size | No | Yes |
| Clip to size | No | Yes |
| Rotation | Only for text | Yes |
| Arbitrary transformation | No | Yes |
| Transparency / opacity | Only for text | Yes |
Text configuration
Both the 3-Heights® Document Converter and the Conversion Service provide configuration settings to determine the style and text variables.
Text style
| Feature | Conversion Service | 3-Heights® Document Converter |
|---|---|---|
| Font family & style | Yes | Yes |
| Size | Yes | Yes |
| Color | Yes | Yes |
| Transparency / opacity | Yes | For entire stamp |
| Stroke (outline) | No | Yes |
| Underline | No | Yes |
| Multiple styles | No | Yes |
Variable text
The 3-Heights® Document Converter supports two kinds of placeholders:
- Predefined placeholders using the syntax
{PLACEHOLDERNAME}are available only for the actual text value. - Custom placeholders using the syntax
[[PLACEHOLDERNAME]]can be used to provide runtime data for any parts of the stamp XML configuration.
The Conversion Service uses a unified placeholder syntax for both predefined and custom placeholders:
[input:PLACEHOLDERNAME]for placeholders referencing data from converted file (e.g.[input:TITLE]).[custom:PLACEHOLDERNAME]for custom placeholders.
Both are only applicable to the actual text value of the stamp, not to other properties like position or alignment.
| Feature | Conversion Service | 3-Heights® Document Converter |
|---|---|---|
| Standard PDF metadata placeholders | Only title | Yes |
| Date & time placeholders | No | Yes |
| Page number & count placeholders | Only in Dossier workflow | Yes |
| Custom placeholders | Yes | Yes |
Image configuration
Both the 3-Heights® Document Converter and the Conversion Service provide configuration settings to determine variable image content.
In the Document Converter, the variable image content was often used to dynamically create barcode images.
Barcodes are natively supported by the Conversion Service using the Barcode stamp type, which directly accepts the barcode data. It's no longer necessary to create the image on the client side.
| Feature | Conversion Service | 3-Heights® Document Converter |
|---|---|---|
| Local path | Yes | Yes |
| URL | No | Yes |
| URL / path placeholder | No | Yes |
| Automatic aspect ratio | Yes | No |
Variable image content
The 3-Heights® Document Converter supports variable content by using the general placeholder syntax to supply the image URL at runtime, e.g <image src="[[IMAGEURL]]" ...>.
Variable image data is not supported by the Document Converter in the general case.