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Have a MacBook running Snow Leopard? Give someone your Autograph

Up to this point in time, if you wanted to "sign" an electronic document (other than a secure PDF), you either had to scan your signature with a scanner and import the resulting graphic into your document, or purchase a digitizing tablet. Ten One Design, the same folks who brought us the Pogo Sketch stylus, have come up with a way for anyone with Snow Leopard and a MacBook that supports multi-touch gestures to sign documents.

Autograph (US$6.95) is a signature capture application that works with your MacBook and a finger or stylus to make signing your name a snap. If you don't know if your MacBook will work with Autograph, you can download a trial copy that adds a watermark to the signature just to try it out.

To add your John Hancock to an email or document when Autograph is running (I have it set up to launch at startup), you can either select the menu bar icon or press control-option-A, and then a semi-transparent gray window appears. Using your finger or a stylus on your trackpad like a pen, you can write your name or draw a little picture. Pressing return embeds the signature or sketch into your document.

Autograph works great! I was able to use it in Mail, Word, Keynote, and Pages, and I'm assuming that it will work fine in any Mac application that lets you paste in a graphic. I know I'll be using this handy little program to add a personal touch to my documents. The short silent video below demonstrates Autograph in action.



Up to this point in time, if you wanted to "sign" an electronic document (other than a secure PDF), you either had to scan your signature...
 

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John

Please ignore my previous comment.

Just heard from the folks of this awesome Autograph app that the next release will be Gmail compatible, meaning your Gmail recipients will be able to see your autograph instead of the PDF attachment. I am very excited about this and will buy this again in the heart beat.

September 05 2009 at 8:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John


I bought this app for $7 bucks and think it is a very nice app. It has one big flaw of NOT showing the signature on Gmail or Outlook. It came through as a pdf attachment.

The signature ONLY shows up if your recipients view your mail in Apple Mail program. Do not buy unless your friends all have Apple mail, which is very unlikely. Too bad.

September 03 2009 at 8:28 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
John

I bought this app think it is a very nice app. It has one big flaw of NOT showing the signature on Gmail or Outlook. It came over as a pdf attachment.

The signature ONLY shows up if your recipients view your mail in Apple Mail program. Do not buy unless your friends all have Apple mail, which is very unlikely. Too bad.

September 03 2009 at 6:44 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Harvey

Works on my (July '09) 15" Macbook Pro using Mac Mail.
Is there anything I can use that will work as a stylus? Using my finger results in a sloppy signature.

September 02 2009 at 12:00 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
h1976

Updated, still just would not work on my unibody pro 15 inch.

Pity I was seconds away from giving them money, and still plagued with problems.

Tried to use textedit, nothing would come out.

Tried to use entourage mail, only a portion of the signature came out, they seem to paste only the lower left quarter of the signature area.

Did a little mini troubleshooting on my own, opened up the clipboard to see what the program actually captured, as expected, only a part of the signature which means that their initial export to clipboard is flawed to begin with.
Tried a combination of the brush strokes settings in the preference to see if they would help maybe make the captured area smaller, nope, no go, still problem persists.

Oh well, hopefully they can finish updating it, because it really is quite a nifty program that I see alot of people will buy

September 02 2009 at 3:30 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Peter

Update available now to address 15"/17" MacBook Pro woes. Select "Check for updates..." from the Autograph menu.

September 01 2009 at 6:13 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Mark

I tried the demo on my unibody. Was unimpressed.
I couldn't figure out how to get the insertion point, for lack of a better name, to the left side of the trackpad—without drawing a little, hitting esc to clear the line, and drawing a bit more, rinse and repeat. Making multiple discrete characters was also difficult—for me at least, YMMV.

September 01 2009 at 4:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
james.jan.i.deluna

This is cool! I ordered the stylus as well since you'll get Autograph for free. Anyway, has anyone tried this on Microsoft Word. It works fine for me, but whenever I would paste it on the document, all I'll get is a blank rectangle on the document instead of the actual signature. However, whenever I would resize it or preview it, I can see it. Is there a certain setting that I need to do to be able to see my actual signature on the document?

September 01 2009 at 3:54 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Todd

Not working here, either (unibody 15"). I also get the blank square, then on pressing enter it locks up my machine for about a half minute. Nice idea, but looks like there are some serious problems to work out.

September 01 2009 at 2:52 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
1 reply to Todd's comment
Todd

There's an update now and it fixes the problems I had. Great app, bought it after the first successful use.

September 03 2009 at 2:52 AM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
hobeaux

Same here. I have a wacom tablet and the pen/mouse locks up. have to hit ESC to exit the window and get my cursor back.

I'll wait for v2.

September 01 2009 at 2:39 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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