Digital Signing Forces "Save As..."

[sutekh137]

Hey all,

We have an issue with our imaging system where when you edit a document, it "check it out", shells out to a PDF editor (in this case, PDF-XChange), and then monitors changes made to save back to the stored document. It checks the file out to an obscure temporary directory that is difficult to get to via the file system (many levels deep).

The problems is this: when we digitally sign the document in PDF-XChange, the application immediately prompts the user with a "SAve As..." dialog. I imagine this is standard for signing, because once signed, the document is locked down. The problem is, we cannot conveniently "Save As" to the obscure temporary file. So, changes cannot be easily saved.

This is a serious kink in our document workflow. We want to be able to check out a document, sign it, and then save the signed version (the imaging software supports versioning). But digitally signing always throws up the Save As.

Is there a way to work around this? One of our users says that she used to be able to digitally sign PDFs in PDF-XChange without the Save As popping up, but we have tried and tested so many things at this point that I am not sure if that is truly the case. None of us can digitally sign a document in PDF-XChange nor Adobe without the Save As popping up.

Any ideas on how to remedy this?

Thanks,
sutekh137

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello sutekh,
Currently there is not a method to change this, The issue with a function to "Save" versus "Save as" when signing is that if someone were to accidentally sign something, they would usually be left completely unable to restore the unsigned version of that file.
We are working on our Sharepoint extension to have the ability to re-save to a similar location when signing a documents, May that be a good solution to your issue?

[sutekh137]

Hello sutekh,
Currently there is not a method to change this, The issue with a function to "Save" versus "Save as" when signing is that if someone were to accidentally sign something, they would usually be left completely unable to restore the unsigned version of that file.
We are working on our Sharepoint extension to have the ability to re-save to a similar location when signing a documents, May that be a good solution to your issue?

No, I am afraid that won't help us. Our imaging software (DocuWare) is what it is, and this is how it handles the editing of documents (checking out to a temp location buried in the bowels of Windows folders). So, there is no way they can be expected to dive all the way into their Windows temp folder every time they want to sign a document. I am not sure what one user was referring to when she said it used to work. I guess we're just stuck or will need to get a different PDF editor for their needs.

Thanks,
sutekh137

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Another option, and I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me initially, is to set the name to be the same as the original file when saving as. This will simply overwrite the original file as if you did a regular "save" function.
Credit goes to the devs for this one.

[sutekh137]

Another option, and I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me initially, is to set the name to be the same as the original file when saving as. This will simply overwrite the original file as if you did a regular "save" function.
Credit goes to the devs for this one.

Daniel,

Yes, we know we can simply save over the original when the Save As pops up. The problem is that when the file is edited from DocuWare it is placed in a very deep location in the file system, all the way down in the user's temporary Windows directory, in a folder called "Edit", and then a folder with a random name with the single PDF inside. Navigating to that location would be a major pain (and error prone), and there would be no folder to remember between edits because the temporary folder has a different name every time. As I stated in my OP, "It checks the file out to an obscure temporary directory that is difficult to get to via the file system (many levels deep)."

So I am afraid that isn't really an option, either.

Thanks,
sutekh137

[HaPe]

@sutekh137

Just a suggestion!
Don't know if it would work with your DocuWare-program and if it does, it would still be an awkward workaround.
Instead of manually clicking through the whole file system you could use "Everything" which is a (very fast) file & folder search program.
As soon as "save as" pops up you enter the name (or just parts of it) of the file/folder in "Everything" to find their location.
Right click on the found file/folder and select "open path" which opens the Windows Explorer where you can copy the full path of the destination.
Copy the path and insert it into the "save as" dialog.

http://www.voidtools.com/

HaPe

[sutekh137]

@sutekh137

Just a suggestion!
Don't know if it would work with your DocuWare-program and if it does, it would still be an awkward workaround.
Instead of manually clicking through the whole file system you could use "Everything" which is a (very fast) file & folder search program.
As soon as "save as" pops up you enter the name (or just parts of it) of the file/folder in "Everything" to find their location.
Right click on the found file/folder and select "open path" which opens the Windows Explorer where you can copy the full path of the destination.
Copy the path and insert it into the "save as" dialog.

http://www.voidtools.com/

HaPe

HaPe, thanks for the idea, but I don;t want to get into needing to install another program on everyone's machine -- that's just adding to the complexity. I could add the temp folder to shortcuts in the Save As dialog, but even that seems like a kludge.

Thanks,
sutekh137

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hello again,
I'm sorry we could not come to a resolution on this front. Is it at all possible to force Docuware to save the file to a specific location that may be easier to get to? If not, that may be something you could ask them for as a feature on their end.
Sadly I do not believe we will be changing our digital signing methods away from the norm anytime soon.

[sutekh137]

Hello again,
I'm sorry we could not come to a resolution on this front. Is it at all possible to force Docuware to save the file to a specific location that may be easier to get to? If not, that may be something you could ask them for as a feature on their end.
Sadly I do not believe we will be changing our digital signing methods away from the norm anytime soon.

Daniel,

You did make me think about saving a "Quick Access" shortcut that appears in the Save As. The "Edit" folder, while in Windows temp area, stays extant between edits and so can be a shortcut all the way into the bowels of the file system. We will note that option for our users.

DocuWare is unlikely to change where on-the-fly edits go... And I understand the standards you all are following (though Adobe appears to NOT force the save for some of our installations...).

Thanks,
sutekh137

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]

Hi sutekh137,
I am glad that you've acquired a few new ideas from this thread at least,
Again, apologies that we have no resolution for you in house.

Have a nice day!

[sutekh137]

Daniel, not a problem. We really like PDF-XChange overall, and it has been working well for us.

Thanks,
sutekh137

[TrackerSupp-Daniel]