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Appearance Class

The visual appearance of signatures

A signature may have a visual appearance on a page of the document. The visual appearance is optional and has no effect on the validity of the signature. Because of this and because a visual appearance may cover important content of the page, it is recommended to create invisible signatures by default.

Typically, a visual appearance is created for forms with a dedicated area reserved for the appearance. Other transaction documents, e.g. invoices, correspondence, or bank statements, are usually signed without a visual appearance.

The appearance can be positioned on a page using PageNumber, Top, Right, Bottom, and Left. It is recommended to set either Top or Bottom and Right or Left. If all are , the default is to position the appearance in the lower right corner with 12 pt (1/6 inch or 4.2 mm) distance to the bottom and right edge of the page, i.e. Bottom = 12 and Right = 12.

Inheritance Hierarchy
SystemObject
  PdfTools.InternalNativeBase
    PdfTools.InternalNativeObject
      PdfTools.SignAppearance

Namespace: PdfTools.Sign
Assembly: PdfTools (in PdfTools.dll) Version: 1.7.0+cfcc11b476b3e1eb4320f0f37269191f64e36bd8
Syntax
C#
public class Appearance : NativeObject

The Appearance type exposes the following members.

Properties
 NameDescription
Public propertyBottom

Distance to bottom of page

This property specifies the distance between appearance's bottom edge and the bottom of the page.

If , the distance to the bottom is unspecified.

Default:

Public propertyCustomTextVariables Maps the name of a custom text variable to its value. These variables can parametrize the content of the text element in the appearance configuration XML and Json files. They are used by setting "[custom:‹key›]".
Public propertyLeft

Distance to left of page

This property specifies the distance between appearance's left edge and the left of the page.

If , the distance to the left is unspecified.

Default:

Public propertyPageNumber

The number of the page where the appearance is positioned

Page number must be in the range from 1 to PageCount.

If , the appearance is positioned on the last page.

Default:

Public propertyRight

Distance to right of page

This property specifies the distance between appearance's right edge and the right of the page.

If , the distance to the right is unspecified.

Default:

Public propertyTop

Distance to top of page

This property specifies the distance between appearance's top edge and the top of the page.

If , the distance to the top is unspecified.

Default:

Top
Methods
 NameDescription
Public methodStatic memberCreateFieldBoundingBox

Create the bounding box for an unsigned signature field

Unsigned signature fields can define a rectangle on a page. When the field is signed, the signer creates a visual appearance within that rectangle.
Public methodStatic memberCreateFromJson

Create an appearance with the content loaded from a JSON file

The format of the JSON file is described in the user manual.
Public methodStatic memberCreateFromXml

Create an appearance with the content loaded from an XML file

The format of the XML file is described in the user manual.
Public methodEquals
(Inherited from NativeObject)
Public methodGetHashCode
(Inherited from NativeObject)
Top
See Also