Participant

Answered

Digital Signature Disappears When Opened In Acrobat Pro

Forum|Forum|5 years ago
August 31, 2020
12 replies
62241 views

Our business office is experiencing the following issue.

When a signed PDF is emailed to her, the signure disappears when she opens it in Acrobat Pro. The signature is displayed in the preview feature in Gmail so we have determined it IS there. But when it's downloaded and opened in Acrobat it is no longer displayed. The document was signed in Acrobat Pro, emailed to the Business office, downloaded then opened in Acrobat Pro. It is here where the signature is no longer showing as it shows in the email preview.

I then had the user send me the PDF and the signature displays in my email preview, but once I open it, it no longer displays. I attempted this on two different computers in both Acrobat Pro and Adobe Reader DC. All applications are up to date. We are running MacOS Catalina 10.15.6 on all computers. Unsure of what could be causing this and why the signature would show up when we view the file in the Gmail preview but then be cleared when opening it in Acrobat Pro/Reader DC on our end.

Correct answer Ross31544699076a

had same issue. fix was to print to PDF then upload to Adobe Sign

M

margueritek

Inspiring

Thank you for the YouTube video. That explains much. The primary problem here is that you are attempting to sign a Digital Signature field with a hand-drawn signature. Dropping the drawn signature onto the Digital Signature field just places the drawing in the base layer of the document. It is NOT a "digital" signature. Digital signatures require signing with a certificate, and if you had instead clicked on the field, you would have been asked to find and identify a certificate to be used for signing. So, there is no bug here. Only user error, possibly combined with insuffient instructions in the form.

R

reliable_guide0307

Participant

Correct

I did mention that in the video as well. Users usually just want to append signatures and Adobe documentation placed all electronic signatures in the same category.

It's quite confusing and I thought to simplify it. Thanks for the observation and feedback

M

Megan24564516tbhu

Participant

Hi, i am also having the same issue. Unable to see signtures in Acrobat that are otherwise visible in browser. The print as Adobe PDF did work, but i've got hundreds of signed contracts and forms that I'd have to convert, as they are all automatically downloaded froom the signature portal as pdfs. Any other fixes? I've dissabled security view, checked the fonts, and all other suggestions, but the signed signature boxes appear blank when opening in acrobat no matter what I do.

try67

Community Expert

This probably means the signature was not applied correctly to begin with. Do you know how (and where) it was signed?

E

Evan33776736hur2

Participant

I think the problem might be with Outlook. I have had the same thing for a handful of doc.'s (not all of them but it randomly seems to happen). Printing from the email in Outlook also erased the signature for me. I signed in to my email via my organizations web browser and was able to print the doc. and keep both signatures. Hope this helps!

D

Debbie329515679pjf

Participant

I am still having this issue. It happens more often than not. Yes, I can print it to PDF, and the signatures show, but this is unacceptable. Fix the system, please. It is causing too many issues for everyone, and this issue seems to have been going on for years now.

A

Anil26439474r69r

Adobe Employee

Is this a digital signature or e-signature . Can you please share the issue file ?

This issue arises when a user applies an e-signature to a digital signature (DigSig) field. The DigSig field expects a certificate-based signature (a signature with both a signature dictionary and appearance dictionary for visible signatures). However, an e-signature, or appearance-based signature, doesn’t utilize the signature dictionary— it only creates a visual appearance. Therefore, if an e-signature is applied to a DigSig field, it results in only a visual representation without the necessary signature dictionary.

Other PDF viewers, like Chrome or Preview, lack the ability to validate a digital signature and rely solely on the appearance. As a result, they display the signature appearance regardless. Adobe Acrobat, on the other hand, requires a certificate-based signing process for DigSig fields. If this isn’t done, For complying with security of signature standard Acrobat ignores the appearance entirely.

When users choose to “Print to PDF,” the interactive DigSig field is flattened and removed, so it no longer functions as a DigSig field. Consequently, Acrobat displays the appearance in this flattened format, similar to how other viewers handle it.

D

davew41876904

Participant

Go to View > Show/Hide > Navigation Panes > Signatures and see if this brings up the signatures in the PDF file.

R

Ross31544699076aCorrect answer

Participant

had same issue. fix was to print to PDF then upload to Adobe Sign

G

grippybananas12

Participant

Any solution? Signatures not appearing with opening with Acrobat. Signatures appear when opening PDF with MS Edge.

Amal.

Community Manager

Hi @grippybananas12

Hope you are doing well and sorry to hear that

Is this an issue with a particular PDF file or with all the PDFs? Please try with a different PDF file and check. If the file is stored on a shared network/drive please download it to your computer locally and then try again.

What is the version of the Acrobat DC you are using? To check the version go to Help > About Acrobat and make sure you have the recent version 23.01.20093 installed. Go to Help > Check for updates and reboot the computer once.

Also try to repair the installation from the help menu (Win Only) and see if that works.

Please try to reset the Acrobat preferences as described here https://community.adobe.com/t5/acrobat-discussions/how-to-reset-acrobat-preference-settings-to-default/td-p/4792082

You may also try to create a new test user profile with full admin rights in Win or enable the root account in MAC and try using the application there and check.

Regards

Amal

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Elise30204725q8mt

Participant

You are useless

S

Stephanie16B7

Participant

Has this issue ever been resolved? I can't share my file because of the contents, but I am definitely having this issue.

JR Boulay

Community Expert

"What's the best way to share it?"

==> https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/sharing-pdfs.html

Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe

A

ALarsen317

Participant

Is this related to the digital signatures disappearing on pdf files?

Thanks!

try67

Community Expert

Make sure you never open the file in an application like Apple Preview or inside a browser window.

T

Test Screen Name

Legend

A digital signature isn't a mark on a page, and it's very important not to trust or look for any marks, because they can be faked in seconds. Look instead at the Signature panel (left hand side). Has the signature vanished from this panel?

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