There is a lot of great information out there related to more “advanced” methods of signing and certifying signatures. Please know going into this article that I am not going to cover in-depth options such as Certificate Authorities or using Adobe Certified Document Services. In this article, I explore the generic process for digitally signing a document using Acrobat X and what you can expect. For most of us individuals and small business owners, it can be used not as an iron-clad legal guarantee, but as a way to see if something changed in the document. In a PDF, most digital signatures are referred to as approval signatures, because it’s used to identify the person signing it. When you certify the document, you can also specify what changes can be made to the document in order for it to remain certified.ĭigitally signing a document can be simple or complex, depending on how you approach it and what you expect from it. Certifying a document via encryption indicates that you approve of the contents of the PDF, and only the first person to sign the document can certify it (usually the initiator).
#Create a digital signature mac pdf#
Password security is the security method most of us use when we want to ensure that content can’t be copied from our PDF (among other things). Using Adobe LiveCycle Rights Management.Password security (the simplest method).Actually, generally, security on a PDF can be broken down into a few options found within Acrobat X: There seemed to be about a billion at first glance.
So I started looking into the different security features that can be added to a PDF in Acrobat. When I started working with PDFs, I remember wanting to send the file to someone and ensuring that the document didn’t change and that content couldn’t be removed, among other things.
Understand the Basics of Digital Signatures