Proof stamp
What Proof stamp actually does
This is deliberately not a free text tool. A review state only works if everyone reading it recognizes it instantly, and five words carry that recognition: DRAFT, APPROVED, REJECTED, CONFIDENTIAL and FINAL. Each arrives with a color already attached, because color is what makes the state readable across a room or in a thumbnail strip: approved is green, rejected and confidential are red, final is blue and draft is gray. Nobody has to agree a convention first, and nobody picks a color that means the opposite to the next reader. There are two placements and the choice is about what the stamp is competing with. Large and slanted across the middle at moderate strength suits a document nobody should mistake, and a small corner mark at nearly full strength suits a page whose content has to stay entirely legible, such as a signed instrument going into a file. The state lands on every page, which is the correct behavior for a status: a document whose first page says APPROVED and whose fifth page says nothing has told a reader nothing about page five.
How to use it
- Choose the PDF.
- Pick the state from the five. The color follows the word automatically.
- Choose the placement: slanted across the middle, or small in a top or bottom corner.
- Set the size if the default does not suit the page.
- Check the preview and download.
Useful for
- Mark a specification APPROVED at the end of a sign-off round so the version in circulation is unambiguous.
- Return a submission REJECTED with the state on every page, so no single page can be lifted out and read as accepted.
- Stamp CONFIDENTIAL before a document enters a shared folder.
- Mark an old revision DRAFT once its successor exists, so the two are never confused.
Limits worth knowing
- Five states only, and the color is bound to the word. Custom wording belongs in the watermark tool, which is built for it.
- Every page is stamped. There is no page selection here, by design.
- No date, initials or reviewer name is added beside the state. A stamp carrying a signature block is a different job.
- The stamp becomes page content and cannot be lifted off later. Keep the unstamped original if the state may change.
Questions people ask
Why can I not type my own word?
Because the value is in recognition. A state nobody has seen before needs explaining, and an explained stamp is not doing a stamp's job. The watermark tool takes any wording.
Which color goes with which state?
Approved is green, rejected and confidential are red, final is blue and draft is gray. The pairing is fixed so it means the same thing on every document.
Can I stamp only the cover page?
Not here. A status that appears on one page tells a reader nothing about the others, so it goes on all of them.
Is the document uploaded?
No. It is opened, stamped and downloaded in this tab.