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Emmie150
Participant
March 5, 2024
Question

validated signatures don't display image of person's cursive signature

  • March 5, 2024
  • 2 replies
  • 1048 views

I have an ongoing issue with the display of validated signatures. The bar at top of the opened PDF says "Signed and all signatures are valid," but at the end of the letter Acrobat displays merely "John B. Doe -S" in a font instead of the image that looks like someone actually signed with a pen. The Signature Properties (which shows when I click on the name) says that "The path from the signer's certificate to an issuer's certificate was successfully built. The signer's certificate is valid and has not been revoked." How can I make the image of the signture display?

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2 replies

MikelKlink
Participating Frequently
March 5, 2024

To expound what @try67 said, the visual appearance of a digital signature in a PDF is completely irrelevant for its validity and the identity of the signer!

The appearance may be a scribble that looks like the signer's ink signature, or it may be a photo of the signer, or it may be some regular text (e.g. the signer's name and the signing time), or a combination thereof. Or it may be a photo of some boy group, or 3 Xs, or the all-seeing pyramid. It may even be completely blank.

The validity of a PDF digital signature and the information who the signer is, must be determined by inspecting the signature properties or the matching entry on the signature panel.

Of course it is not nice if the appearance refers to a different person than the signature properties. It may even be somewhat misleading and be rejected for that reason. But strictly speaking it would count as a valid signature of the actual signer.

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 5, 2024

You have to set up an Appearance for the signature profile that is used to display an image of the hand-written signature, instead of the plain text. I hope you realize this doesn't mean anything, though, and both signatures are just as valid...

Emmie150
Emmie150Author
Participant
March 5, 2024

Thanks for your reply! I'm not sure I follow, though. Do you mean the originator didn't set up an appearance when they created their digital signature? There were other signed PDF documents that I received that had their signatures display properly, and I did nothing different with those documents or my app settings. 

try67
Community Expert
Community Expert
March 5, 2024

Correct. This is up to the signer. And again, it's not "not done properly". It's just an appearance. The contents of the signatures are exactly the same.