Stamp element properties

Stamp elements are parts of stamp divided by predefined delimiter.

Type - enter stamp element type. 7 types of elements are supported:

  • Literal. This type represents integer numbers as sequences of Latin letters A-Z and has 26-based notation. Each letter corresponds to a number (example: "A" = 0, "L" = 11, "Z" = 25, "BA" = 26 etc.). Minimal legal value is -2147483848 and maximal is 2147483647.
  • Literal-Numeric. This type is based on 36-based notation. Integer numbers are represented as Latin letters A-Z and decimal digits 0-9. Each combination of letters and digits corresponds to a number (example: "A" = 0, "Z" = 25, "0" = 26, "9" = 35, "BA" = 36, "B" = 62 etc.). Minimal legal value is -2147483848 and maximal is 2147483647.
  • Numeric. This type represents integer numbers. Minimal legal value is -2147483848 and maximal is 2147483647.
  • Numeric-Literal. This type is based on 36-based notation. Integer numbers are represented as decimal digits 0-9 and Latin letters A-Z. Each combination of digits and letters corresponds to a number (example: "0" = 0, "9" = 9, "A" = 10, "Z" = 35, "11" = 36, "1B" = 46 etc.). Minimal legal value is -2147483848 and maximal is 2147483647.
  • Roman. Positive integers represented as Roman numbers. Minimal legal value is 1 and maximal is 3999.
  • Text. Static text string.
  • Time. This type represents time and date according to specified format. Minimal value is 00:00:00 01.01.1970 and maximal value is 03:14:07 19.01.2038.

For every type, configure the following settings.

Leading symbol - a symbol, that fills up unused cells in element's length. For example, if the type is Numeric, length is 3, leading symbol is 0, and the counter is 1, then the element's value will be "001". When this string is empty, unused characters are not filled.

Character case - select one of three available options: as is, uppercase and lowercase.

Length - specify how many characters are allocated for this stamp element.

If the length is too short for the element, an error will occur while using the stamp.

Format - this setting is available only for Numeric, Text and Time types.

For Numeric type, format of number can be set to Space separated, Comma separated or No separator.

For Time and Text types, static text or tags can be used. For example, %.9L-%.2D, %Y format string represents date as: <English name of a month>-<Two-digit day of month>,<Full year>.

The following Time tags are supported for Time type format:

Tag Meaning
%Y Full year (1970-2038)
%.2Y Last two digits of year (70-38)
%M One or two digit month (1-12)
%.2M Two digit month (01-12)
%.9L English name of a month
%.9W English name of day of week
%D One or two digit day of month (1-31)
%.2D Two digit day of month (01-31)
%H One or two digit hours (0-23)
%.2H Two digit hours (00-23)
%h One or two digit hours (0-12)
%.2h Two digit hours (01-12)
%m One or two digit minutes (0-59)
%.2m Two digit minutes (00-59)
%S One or two digit seconds (0-59)
%.2S Two digit seconds (00-59)
%T One digit Ante/Post Meridiem (A/P)
%.2T Two digit Ante/Post Meridiem (AM/PM)
%% Single percent symbol

For Text type, a number of text macros are supported.

Counter range - specify range for the counter. Counter is the current value of the element, except for elements of Text type. Text is always static and counters are not applicable to it.

First value is the starting value for the counter.

Last value is the last legal value for the counter.

For example, if you want to set page numbers and your documents contain not greater than 560 pages, set First value = 1 and Last value = 560. (Note that Length of the element must correspond to the values; in this case it should be set to 3 or greater).

Cyclic - select this check box to make the counter looped. This means that the First value is the next legal value of the counter after the Last value. When the counter value exceeds Last value the next value will be taken from the range just like if First value follows the Last value. If the option is off, then the element takes no value after the last one and the stamp is exhausted in this case. The users cannot take values of the stamp in this case.

Current value is the current value of the counter. This value must belong to the range from First value to Last value.

Counter settings - configure setting for the counter behavior.

Increment by - enter a value of counter increment on each generation of a stamp value. This means that next counter value will exceed the previous one by this value. Increment can also be negative, but in this case First value must be greater than Last value, and the counter will decrease. If you set Increment counter to 0, the counter will remain changeless.

For Time type, increment has two positions: time units (Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, Years) and number of chosen units (for example, 3 hours).

Every option shows how often the counter increases.  You can select increase condition: number of generated stamp values or number of requests.

If you choose Stamp values, then counter will increase by Increment value after every set of  stamp values which quantity is defined in Every. In other words, the defined number of equal stamp values will be created and only after that the counter will increase. See examples below.

If you select Requests, then the counter will increase in every N'th request where N is the defined number in Every, regardless of the number of stamps in each request.

Number defined in Every  must be positive (1 or greater).

Some examples to explain how it works

  • Type is Numeric, First value is 9, Last value is 0, Cyclic is on, Increment by is -1 and Every is set to 1 stamp value. In this situation counter will change from 9 to 0 taking all intermediate integer values, then it will be 9 again and the process will repeat.
  • Type is Numeric, First value is 0, Last value is 9, Cyclic is on, Increment by is 4, Every is set to 1 stamp value. The values of the element will be the following: 0, 4, 8, then 2 (as 8+4>9), 6, 0 etc.
  • Type is Time, First value is 00:00:01 01.01.2000, Last value is 23:59:59 31.12.2000, Cyclic is off, Increment by is 1 day, Every is set to 3 requests. The counter will change from January,1,2000 to December,31,2000 taking all intermediate dates and every 3 requests will have equal stamp values not depending on number of stamps in each request. The last generated stamp value will be 00:00:01 31.12.2000 and then the stamp will be exhausted. This can be useful, for instance, if a user needs to stamp daily all pages of 3 documents with different number of pages, and he wants to see dates of year 2000 as stamp values.

Number of used stamp values /Number of used requests is the current number of stamp values or requests created for the current value of counter (must be an integer greater than zero and less than Every). This value is updated automatically when users make requests for the stamp.

For example, you set to create 5 stamp values for every counter value (Every is set to 5 stamp values), but for current counter 3 stamps have already been received by users. Therefore Number of used stamp values will be 3.

Reset counter after request - check on this option if you need the counter to take First value after each request.  Number of used stamp values / requests  will also be reset (to 0).

For example, a user needs to number pages in current document and asks for the same number of pages. Next time he asks for another quantity of pages, but the counter must still start from 1 (assuming that First value is 1) again. Set First value to 1 and Reset counter after request set to ON.