Participant

Question

Digital Signature Not Showing Up in Saved PDF

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
January 27, 2010
5 replies
302807 views

I am frequently sent pdf contracts that need to be filled out, signed and returned. I turn the pdf into a form and then add a signature field, click "certify with visible signature," sign it and save it as a pdf. But then when I email the signed pdf it has all the form content but doesn't show the signature. Same for when I open the file in Preview. The signature only shows up in Acrobat. Can anyone help explain what I am doing wrong?

Thanks in advance.

Security digital signatures and esignatures

P

Parinas

Participant

I found a work-around using Preview on Mac. After adding my signature, I used the Print function and then select PDF, save the file. My signature appeared in the saved version.

C

Cprende

Participant

I use Adobe Sign to get signatures. Using Windows 10. I then download the signed contracts and save as an unsecured PDF to send to my accounting dept who of course uses MACs. They try to view in MAC Preview. Up until 2-3 weeks ago there was no issue. Now they open my PDF in MAC Preview and they can see the first few pages and the rest are there but appear blank. There was no issue with this for just over 2 years. This issue started 2-3 weeks ago. Supports answer if for them to download and use Adobe Reader DC. Not going to happen. Anyone know of a work around or if I am doing something wrong.

C

cbrunk

Participant

For what it is worth, the same thing happens intermittently using the custom stamp in Adobe Acrobat Pro. It seems assigning blame to other operating systems and programs is irrelevant. A simple "flatten" command would be useful.

A

Anonymous

Hi,

I am trying to EXTRACT from a PDF with a Topaz signature on it (RUNNING ACROBAT PRO X ON WINDOWS) and when it EXTRACT'S the signature that a client has signed digitally via Topaz it does not show up when saving it, any suggestions?

I am lost and any help would greatly be appreciated.

Steven_Madwin

Adobe Employee

Hi Arevalo,

When you extract a page (or any mount of pages in the document) you are creating a new document, and thus the signature is always removed. If you want the new document to be signed you need to sign it, you just can't pull pages out and expected the signature to persist.

Steve

A

Anonymous

Hi Steve,

I found a work around it. Extract which pops open a new window THEN sign and then save, which captures the original signature.

Andrew Arevalo

The Corrigan Group

303-882-8983

www.athomedenver.com

Steven_Madwin

Adobe Employee

Hi,

The problem is Preview (and I assume you are referring to the application that comes on the Mac) doesn't know how to process the signature, so it doesn't display it. However, if your clients use the free Adobe Reader they will see the certifying signature. If you need them to fill out the form, be sure to Reader Enable the file before you send it to them. You can do this by selecting the Advanced > Extend Features in Adobe Reader menu item.

Steve

D

dsaksAuthor

Participant

I am referring to the Mac application and your diagnosis makes sense, but

this seriously limits the functionality of the digital signature. The

document (which should appear as a filled out and signed form i.e. a W-2

when I'm done with it) will appear unsigned when opened in a browser, or in

Preview or many other common methods of opening a .pdf. I suppose I could

save it as .tif, then resave it as a pdf, but that's a minor hassle and some

text degradation occurs.

Steven_Madwin

Adobe Employee

Steve, are all Adobe employees this argumentative and/or obtuse? There's no complaint in my response to you about Preview or any other application. My response merely pointed out that the wet ink version does not appear in applications outside of Adobe's. "Best of both worlds" in your response is easily construed to mean digital signature ("cryptographically secured") in Acrobat/Reader and "wet ink signature" in other applications. If that's not what you meant, then it's my mistake -- and others will make it, too.

Two additional points:

I understand why Adobe won't (if that's the case) license the digital signatures ability so that Preview and other applications can use it. However, it should be trivial to allow that wet ink signature appear in other apps and I don't see a compelling reason to prevent it -- afer all, it's not a digital signature.
If your job is to monitor this forum and assist users, why couldn't you manage to suggest that the other users use the stamps feature, since it was clear that what they were wanting was only the signature image? These folks are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on your products and they deserve better than this.

Hi,

It was dsaks who originally asking about creating a digital signature and that's what the core of this thread is about. When Mobius Strip asked about flattening the signature into a bitmap image that I suggested using a custom signature appearance, because the progenitor of the thread was asking about digital signatures. If they can get by with using a custom stamp then that's fine by me, but that wasn't the thread topic.

On to your questions:

mrtoner wrote:

I understand why Adobe won't (if that's the case) license the digital signatures ability so that Preview and other applications can use it. However, it should be trivial to allow that wet ink signature appear in other apps and I don't see a compelling reason to prevent it -- afer all, it's not a digital signature.

There is no licensing involved here. The PDF specification is public and the Acrobat SDK even has an example of how to create your own signature plug-in. When it comes to the actual cryptographic operations we license the software from RSA. As far as how the signature is created, and how it should be processed, that's all covered by public facing documentation. In fact, Apple is more than capable of processing signatures using their Keychain utility, it's just that they have elected not to include that functionality into Preview.

If your job is to monitor this forum and assist users, why couldn't you manage to suggest that the other users use the stamps feature, since it was clear that what they were wanting was only the signature image? These folks are spending hundreds and thousands of dollars on your products and they deserve better than this.

It's not my job to monitor the forum. I chime in on digital signature issues because it's a complex subject and there are so few people who understand the minutia of how they work. If dsaks hadn't added "certify with visible signature," to the original post I would have skip this completely, but he/she did so I tried to answer their question.

Finally, it's a bit disingenuous when you stated "The image does not display at all, except in Acrobat/Acrobat Reader". It just doesn't display in the free Mac Preview app. There are other third party signature handlers that will process and display a digital signature in a PDF file, but there are not a lot of them in free PDF viewers. As I said above, if dsaks can get by with a custom stamp then great, but if he/she needs a cryptographically sound digital signature then there is no reason why not to created it because everyone can get the free Reader for the Mac, Windows and Linux platforms.

Steve

Sign up

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Sign in to Adobe Community

To post, reply, or follow discussions, please sign in with your Adobe ID.

Scanning file for viruses.

This file cannot be downloaded