Digital Signature Disappears When Opened In Acrobat Pro

[mljones01]

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.

[Michele268451885lqf]

When i mention doc, I am referring to document, not a Word file.  These files are all .pdf.   Testing different .pdf files, I find the ones that were affected when I reported this are still not showing the signature with Adobe, but do show the signature using Chrome.  The newer .pdf files are now showing the signature using Adobe.  Not sure what could have changed.  

[LucDubois]

The problem still persists.

Latest version of Adobe Acrobat Pro

Latest Office 365/Outlook.

I can view the digital signature on Chrome, Edge and Firefox, but NOT on Adobe Acrobat.

The file was SAVE AS from Outlook desktop application.

Therefore, I believe the Adobe Acrobat Pro doesn't recognize the Digitally Signed signature.  

Adobe support is bad, I don't understand why my company pays millions of dollars a year for this company.

[anil_0297]

Hi Luc,

As I understand, you're exporting a digitally signed email from Outlook by saving or printing it as a PDF.

Just to clarify — when an email with a digital signature (S/MIME) is saved or printed to PDF, the result is a static visual representation of the email. In this process, the cryptographic integrity of the original digital signature is lost. What remains in the PDF is essentially a visual placeholder — like an image or drawing of the signature — but not a verifiable digital signature.

Some browser-based PDF viewers may still show this visual mark because they treat it as regular content. However, Adobe Acrobat is signature-aware — it distinguishes between visual annotations and actual cryptographic signatures. If the PDF doesn't contain a valid digital signature object (as per PDF signing standards), Acrobat won’t display any signature panel or validation info — by design.

This distinction is precisely why tools like Acrobat are valuable — they offer accurate validation of secure, standards-based digital documents, not just a "nice-to-look-at" rendering.

Let me know if you'd like help with a workflow that preserves the integrity of digital signatures across formats.

[LucDubois]

Are you a real human or just a chatbot?
Ok, let me redo:
1-someone sent me a PDF document WITH digital signature (digitally SIGNED).
2- I download/ SAVE AS the file on number 1 to my computer.
3- I can use the browsers to open the file to see the digital signature
Problem = I cannot see the digital signature(which can be seen when viewing
in browsers)when viewing it with Adobe Reader/Acrobat Pro

Why the f I have to repeat myself, other people had to as well, when I
clearly stated in my original post. Adobe is full of incompetence

[anil_0297]

Thank you for sharing additional context, and for your patience.

To clarify the situation: browser-based PDF viewers (like Chrome, Edge, or Firefox) generally display the visual appearance of a digital signature that is just a graphical element embedded in the file. However, these viewers do not perform cryptographic validation of the signature. That means they don't verify whether the document has been altered or if the signer’s certificate is trusted and valid so what you see in browser is just a design with no cryptographical value similar to e-sign.

Adobe Acrobat, on the other hand, is designed to do both:

Render the visual representation of the signature field, and

Cryptographically validate the signature to ensure the document’s integrity and authenticity.

In your case, it appears that when the PDF was saved (or exported) from Outlook, it may have been flattened or the sender itself sent a flattened pdf— meaning the original digital signature's cryptographic components were removed or lost in the process. Acrobat detects this and, by design, does not display the signature field if the signature in digital signature field lost its cryptographic integrity . This is a deliberate security choice to protect users using digital signature from spoofed or tampered content that looks like a signature but isn’t verifiable.

To confirm this, we’d be happy to examine the PDF. Alternatively, you may ask the sender to resend blank  digitally signed document and describe exactly how it was exported. If the intent is only to show that a document was signed — without requiring cryptographic validation — the sender might consider using an e-signature field with e-sign in it instead instead of a digital certificate-based signature.

We understand this can be frustrating, but Acrobat’s goal is to prioritize trust and document security over visual cues alone.

[interesting_Sunbeam1239]

I am having this same issue with Digital Signatures. It shows up fine for some people and other people see it completely blank. I am not using the "Print to PDF" option. They are using Adobe Acrobat to view it. 

I am unable to share an example file as our work contains confidential information. How do I stop this from happening?

[margueritek]

You really need to send an example document, one created without confidential information, to Adobe to analyze. There are many reasons for this behavior, often due to sloppy PDF generation tools. For instance, not marking the PDF as containing digital signatures, or not properly constructing the AcroForm Widget entry. Or using an old version of Acrobat, which doesn't correctly handle deleted signatures. All can be revealed with a PDF debug tool, but the real reason can't be guessed at from "some people can see it and some can't".

[interesting_Sunbeam1239]

Hi - I understand you're saying to create one without confidential information, but how do I know if the example one I send you is broken? Everyone on our team is able to view the signatures. Even sending to my personal non work Adobe let's me see the signature. It's when we send it to our military contacts that they are having issues viewing the signatures. I can't exactly ask them to do a fake test run... Would an example document that we don't know whether it's one of the issue ones work for 'pdf debugging'? 

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi interesting_Sunbeam1239,

Thank you for reaching out.

As mentioned, the issue occurs on the recipient's end. Could you please ask them how they are opening and viewing the document? Are they using the same application on their end? Would you mind sharing screenshots of how the signature field appears on their end and how it appears on your end before you send it?

We can't comment on what might be causing this behavior without checking the file. We need more information to replicate this behavior.

Thanks,

Meenakshi

[vicky_6944]

07. Aug.2025, still encountering ths same techinical issue......

[Meenakshi Negi]

Hi Megan24564516tbhu, and vicky_6944,

Thank you for reaching out, and sorry about the trouble caused.

As you are still experiencing this issue, could you please share the following information:

- How was the signature added?

- How was the form created?

- Would it be possible to share a sample document with a signature so we can check it?

- Please share the current Acrobat and OS version numbers.

- When you say the signature is visible in the browser, are you referring to Acrobat Web?

Thanks,

Meenakshi

[Megan24564516tbhu]

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]

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

[margueritek]

To all of those having this problem, if you would put an example PDF somewhere in a public share, we could take a look at the file internals and try to diagnose the problem. I am not currently an Acobe employee (and probably also the case for try67).  However we do know a lot about PDF and Acrobat.