Watermark PDFs Using Nintex Workflow and the Muhimbi PDF Converter for SharePoint

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	We recently released the Muhimbi PDF Converter Xtension for Nintex Automation Cloud. You can download it <a href="https://gallery.nintex.com/t/muhimbi">here</a> or learn more about available Muhimbi deployments for Nintex on our <a href="https://www.nutrient.io/low-code/integrations/nintex">product page</a>.
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Our popular PDF Converter for SharePoint started off as a a relative straightforward PDF Converter. As we really listen to our customers we have added a lot of functionality over the years resulting in a very complete feature set. One of the more powerful modules of the product is the integrated Watermarking Engine, which allows all kind of watermarks (Text, RTF, PDF, Images, Ellipses, Lines etc.) to be added to PDF files.

Support for SharePoint Designer, a Web Services API as well as a host of other watermarking functionality has been available for a while, but with the introduction of version 5.1 we are adding support for the popular, and rather brilliant, Nintex Workflow as well. In addition to the new PDF Watermarking Nintex Workflow Activity, we are also adding activities for PDF Security, PDF Merging as well as HTML to PDF Conversion.

Similar to all other Nintex Activities provided by Muhimbi, the Watermark PDF activity integrates with Nintex Workflow at a deep level. It supports SharePoint 2007, 2010 & 2013, allows errors to be handled and even supports integration with Nintex’ iterators to deal with multiple items and loops. For a comprehensive example and details about how to enable the Nintex Workflow integration see the blog post that discusses our generic Nintex PDF Conversion activity.

Watermark PDF files using Nintex Workflow 2007 and 2010 (Image watermark shown)

Building a full example workflow is out of the scope of this post as it is relatively simple. For details see our generic PDF Conversion for Nintex Workflow example. The fields supported by this Workflow Activity are as follows:

• Destination Path: Enter the path to write the watermarked file to, either:

  - Leave it empty to use the same filename (and path) as the file that triggered the workflow.

  - A file name, without the full path, to write a differently named file to the same location as the source file.

  - A relative path to a subsite / document library / folder, e.g. Shared Documents/Some Folder/Some File.pdf.

  - An absolute path to a different site collection, e.g. /sites/Finance/Shared Documents/Some Folder/Some File.pdf.

  Please make sure the path does not include the host name, e.g. ‘https://your site/…’.

• Watermark type: A number of different watermark types are supported. Unlike our individual SharePoint Designer workflow activities, all watermark types have been rolled up into a single Nintex Activity. The functionality is largely the same so have a look here for more details. The following watermark types are supported.

  • Text: Add a text based watermark with full control over the font type, size, style, rotation and field codes such as {PAGE}.

  • PDF: Add the first page of another PDF file as the watermark.

  • Image: Use a BMP, JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, WMF or EMF / EMF+ file as a watermark.

  • RTF: Use RTF based text as a watermark.

  • Ellipse: Add an ellipse based watermark.

  • Line: Add a line based watermark.

  • QR Code: Add a QR code as a watermark. For details see this blog post.

  • Composite: For complex watermarks, or watermarks consisting of multiple elements such as line AND text AND images use the Composite Watermark in combination with our XML based watermarking syntax.

• PDF List ID: If you wish to carry out further actions on the watermarked PDF file, e.g. send it by email or perform a check-in, then you can optionally write the ID of the List the PDF was written to in a workflow variable of type String.

• PDF List Item ID: Similarly to PDF List ID, the Item ID of the watermarked PDF file can optionally be written to a workflow variable of type Item ID (in SharePoint 2007) or Integer (in SharePoint 2010 / 2013).

• Source List ID & List Item: The item that triggered the workflow is watermarked by default. You can optionally specify the ID of a different List and List Item using workflow variables. Please use the same data types as used by PDF List ID and PDF List Item ID.

• Error Handling: Similar to the way some of Nintex’ own Workflow Activities allow errors to be captured and evaluated by subsequent actions, all of Muhimbi’s Workflow Activities allow the same. By default this facility is disabled meaning that any error terminates the workflow.