Design Center article

Certifying a document

One way to apply a digital ID to a PDF document in Adobe® Acrobat® 8, confirming the file as a legally correct document, is to certify it. This affirms the contents as correct and specifies the types of changes allowed. For example, a form may be certified and allow the user to fill in the fields; however, if the user tries to delete or replace pages, the document will no longer be certified.

1. Click the Sign Task button (Figure 1) to open its menu and choose either Certify with Visible Signature or Certify Without Visible Signature and click OK.

   

   Figure 1: Click the Sign Task button to open its menu.

2. In the Certify Document dialog, decide how the signature will appear and work by choosing options from the pop-up menus (Figure 2):

   

   Figure 2: Specify how you want the document certified using these options.

   • Select the Digital ID and type in the Password for the signature.
   • Choose from the Appearance pop-up menu.
   • Specify why the document is being signed using choices from the Reason pop-up menu. The signature has to have the Reason option included in order to include the Reason menu.
   • In the Choose Allowable Actions dialog specify the rights you want to grant the user. The pop-up menu offers three options: you can prevent any changes from being made, allow users to fill out forms and sign the document, or allow users to add comments, fill out forms, and sign the document.
   • Click Review to have Acrobat check the document to see if there are features that can create problems for the completed document (such as existing signatures).
3. To certify the file, click Sign to open the Save As dialog.
4. Name the document and click Save. The document is saved, and displays basic information in the Document Message Bar (Figure 3).

   

   Figure 3: Specify how you want the document certified using these options.

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Signing and saving

You can also find information about the document’s status in the Signature panel. Click the Signatures icon on the Navigation pane to open the Signature panel, where you can read about the status, signature dates, encryption method, and so on.

Where to go from here

For more information about working with security Acrobat 8, check out these other great tutorials:

• Creating a self-signed digital ID , by Donna Baker
• Creating and managing security policies, by Donna Baker

Requirements

To complete this article, you will need the following software:

Adobe Acrobat 8

• Try
• Buy (Professional)

Prerequisite knowledge:

Basic knowledge of working with Acrobat

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