General tips > Attaching Officer Signatures to Reports

Attaching Officer Signatures to Reports

Attaching signatures to be used on reports is easy to set up, and creates a more professional appearance to reports. This tutorial will outline how to add or change the scanned signature graphics stored in the scanned signature field.

Signature example, found at the bottom of a report.

There are three (3) likely scenarios that a department may face when gathering an Officer’s signature to paste into FirePro.

1.	You have a hardcopy of the signature. Crumpling it up and throwing it at the computer monitor isn’t working- scan the document as a jpeg/pdf. Now it’s a digital copy, follow the instructions below.

2.	You have a digital copy of the signature, for example in an adobe document.

3.	You already have a jpeg of just the signature.

Procedure

Goal: Get the signature image to the clipboard, and paste it into FirePro.

1.	Everyone: Get the image

2.	Jpeg: follow the Word instructions.

a.	Insert the image into Word.

b.	Use the selection tool to select the signature

c.	Press Control-C to copy the graphic to the clipboard.

3.	Everyone: Open the Officer List and select the name of the Officer who has a signature to attach.

4.	Everyone: Click inside the ‘scanned signature’ box and press Control-V to paste the graphic.

1.	Get the image (picture taken of the signature that has been saved as a JPG, BMP, PNG, etc.) on your computer.

Hardcopy: Scan the document that contains the image, save it as a jpeg/pdf and follow the proceeding digital copy instructions for using a screenshot tool (because now you have a digital copy.)

Digital Copy: If the signature that you’d like to use is embedded in a document, a Screenshot tool (I used Gadwin PrintScreen 4.7) can be used to select the signature from the document. It will copy in the clipboard and allow you to skip ahead to Step 4 .

Jpeg: Find the image on your computer

2.	Jpeg Only: Open Microsoft Word.

a. Click the Insert tab and select Picture, and choose the signature image from your computer to open.

b.Ensure that the image shows that it’s selected (this should be the default after it’s been inserted.) If it is not selected, click directly over the image. Selected images have a border like this around them:

c. Once the graphic is selected, press Control-C (or right click-copy) to copy the graphic to the clipboard.

3.	Open the Officer List in Set-Up--> Officer List--> Officer Set-Up. Select the name of the officer whose signature you are attaching from the top list.

4.	Click the Scanned Signature graphics box found at the bottom of the window.

A subtle outline will appear in the box. Press Control-V (or right click- paste) to paste the signature from the clipboard to the officer record.

It's normal if your graphic does not fit into the box exactly. The graphic boxes have options that are used to resize the graphics automatically to ensure they fit. However, there are size limits for these graphic boxes. If the picture is too large, the auto-size function will not be able to shrink it enough. If it's too small, the graphic will look blocky. Another thing to keep in mind is the length or width of the signature; very tall signatures will not work as well as ones that are wide. In next week’s Tip, we’ll look at post-processing for editing or resizing the image.

Reports:

This scanned signature image is printed when selected on certain reports.

Inspection Reports (Inspection record-->’Print’ report), the Inspector Signature picture can be flagged to be included in the Print Preferences window.

Occupant Load Certificates (Property record-->Occupant Load Calculator--> ‘Print report) the Officer Signature picture will be included at the bottom of the report.)

Permits (Permit record-->’Print’ report), the Issuer Signature can be flagged to be included in the Print Preferences window.

Operation Guidelines (OG record-->’ Print’ Details report), the Approved by Officer Signature picture will be included at the bottom of the OG (to include this option, go to Set-Up-->Custom Settings-->OG and flag the ‘’Print Approved by Signature’ checkbox.)

Alberta Incident Reports (Incident record--> ‘Print’ Details report), the Author of the report (as entered in the Incident record-->Author tab) may have a signature included at the bottom of the Incident report.

We can add the signature function to other modules-please contact Ingenious Software if there are reports you’d like to see have this function.