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Participant
October 9, 2024
Question

Duplicate Signature blocks

  • October 9, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 473 views

I am trying to create digital version of an old paper form. The old form was 4 page carbon copy style with two places to sign.  The front of each page is the same form with different backside forms for each page. The company's requirement is to have the same duplicate pages and digital signatures for each iteration.

i.e  Form A, Form B, Form A, Form C, Form A, Form D, Form A, Form E. 

 

I understand that the point of a digital signature is to validate the entire file, but they want it digitally signed multiple times. Is there a way to sign one page and have it also show up on the duplicate pages?  The client does not want a "drawn" signature and have only one digital signature, they all have to be digitally signed. I tried the "duplicate across pages" feature, but nothing shows up. 

 

I'm just trying to streamline the process. 

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2 replies

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
October 10, 2024

> I'm just trying to streamline the process. 

You're doing the opposite, though. The only way to do that would be to apply a separate digital signature to each section, which will be much more time-consuming, make the file much larger, and less stable.

You only need to apply the digital signature once. In doesn't matter on what page you see it. In fact, it doesn't need to appear on any page at all. You can sign the file without there being a visual indication of it at all. All that matters is that the signature appears in the Signatures panel on the left, and that it's valid.

MikelKlink
Participating Frequently
October 10, 2024

Generally a single PDF form field can show in multiple locations across multiple pages with synchronized contents. For signature field, though, the PDF specification explicitly forbids this. Thus, while structurally possible, creating signature fields with multiple appearances in a PDF makes it, strictly speaking, invalid. So Acrobat does not support creating such fields. 

 

On the other hand, the major signature validators currently don't check whether a signature field has multiple appearances. In the wild, therefore, there are numerous PDFs with such fields nonetheless. Any time, though, validators could start checking this and mark the signatures of such PDFs as invalid.