Help - Digital signatures in Acrobat Pro (all

Report · Dec 29, 2022

I'm trying to provide a digitally-signed form to a US government agency and it seems I'm unable to get their PDF to include the required "verification code" (their term). If it matters, they require "digital signatures" not "electronic signatures" (the two terms are often but not always used interchangeably).

Here's what I'm trying...

1. I open their form in Acrobat Pro (latest version 2022.003.20281), by simply choosing File > Open or E-Sign > Fill & Sign Yourself (results are the same either way).

2. File opens in Acrobat; there's a tool-tip in the upper right corner that says "The author of this form has specified the fields which you can fill. Click on any field to start filling form. (OK)"

3. I fill out all required fields in the form (text or checkboxes, tabbing through each field).

4. When I reach the SIGNATURE field, I click in the field, cursor changes to "pointer-with-a-rectangle" indicating I can click-and-drag to define the area to add my signature. I do so, and a blue-ish rectangle is drawn. All good so far.

5. I click the "Sign yourself" button on the second row toolbar at top of the window. I see my name appear (in faux cursive), and I click on that to select me/my "signature."

6. I move the cursor over the document and position my "signature" over the desired field. I click to drop the signature in place, it sticks to the proper location, with a bounding box around it with controls for larger/smaller text or delete. Looks good.

7. With that signature still selected, I look over on the left side vertical tool panel, see the "pen with signature tool" icon; hovering over that tool, the tooltip says "Signatures: Verify signatures added to this document" and that looks like what I need.

8. I click that tool and the Signatures panel slides open. Under Signatures, I see a (certificate?) icon with a disclosure triangle, labeled "Validate All". The label appears to (maybe?) be greyed out (hard to be sure). When I click the text, nothing happens, so I assume it's disabled. When I expand the disclosure triangle, a (disabled) menu pops up, which has 10 items on it. This look like the functions I need, but every one is grayed out (disabled). Menu items include:

- Sign Document

- Certify with Visible Signature

- Go to Signature Field

-------------------------------

- Validate Signature

- Validate All Signatures

-------------------------------

- Clear All Signatures

-------------------------------

- View Signed Version

- Compare Signed Version to Current Version

-------------------------------

Add Verification Information

-------------------------------

Show Signature Properties

Right now, I have the form with my "signature" appearing in the right place on the form, and it looks OK but that's not working for the US government agency. I was able to reach someone there (that wasn't easy) who received my file, he confirmed receiving the file but said "the form is not acceptable because the app used to create it did not show a verification code for the signer." I'm attempting to get greater clarity on exactly what is (and isn't) happening from this person; realistically, knowledge of the details of digital signatures are probably not his primary job function, so his description of what went wrong may not capture the full details. It may be that he feeds the PDF into some proprietary government processing software and he looks for some "code" to ensure the PDF is properly signed. Just a guess. I suspect he may not be able to provide much more detail (not his job to troubleshoot files).

When I see the disabled options for signature validation in Acrobat, I assume that is an indication that something is not set up correctly. If it was, I assume that several of the (currently disabled) menu items would appropriately "bless" the document/signature and the US government's system would not cough on the PDF and spit it out.

I'm blocked at this point and can not move forward with this time-critical document.

I've looked through Acrobat and it's preferences for what to do. I'm guessing Preferences > Signatures > Identities & Trusted Certificates is where the root cause can be found, but when I click on that "More..." button, the Digital ID and Trusted Certificate Settings dialog opens, and everything I see there makes me want to just print everything on paper, shut off the computer, and run to FedEx to overnight my documents into the gaping maw of this gigantic US government agency (which they tell me has a six-month backlog in just processing incoming mail, never mind resolving issues). Yikes.

The the Digital ID and Trusted Certificate Settings dialog might as well be in a foreign language for me. Is it really that complicated? Is there no simple way to just get my #$*! signature validated for the Feds?

Thanks for any help and sympathy. In its current state, Acrobat is pretty useless to me. I think I need to crank up the printer and head to FedEx. Sigh.

Report · Dec 29, 2022

adding...

Sorry, post title got truncated, should have been:

Help - Digital signatures in Acrobat Pro (all Signature Validation Options Desabled)

Machine is a Mac running macOS 11.6.5 Big Sur.

Report · Dec 30, 2022

You probably should be using a digital signature profile. But in order to do that the file needs to be set-up properly, for example by having a digital signature field. You can check if that's the case by opening the Signatures panel on the left-hand side (or the right-hand side in the new Acrobat layout... Who knows any more...). Is it empty, or does it say something like "Unsigned Signature Fields"? If the latter, click the first item under it to jump to that field, and then right-click it and select Sign Document. You will probably need to create a digital signature profile if that's the first time you're using such a field. Then sign the field and save the file. The signature can later be verified using the public key from your signature profile.

And no, this is not a simple subject, especially when it comes to governmental agencies. You have to do it just right.

Report · Dec 30, 2022

Hi try67, thanks for your reply and for your assistance.

Here's what the Signatures panel looks like when I open the document (I don't see any way to open the Signatures panel within Acrobat if no doument is open):

Note that all items on the dropdown menu are disabled. But I see nothing there like "Unsigned Signature Fields."

When I click on "Fill and Sign" in the right-side toolbar, a popup appears in the upper right corner, like so:

That's the only notification I see when opening the document.

@try67 wrote:
You will probably need to create a digital signature profile if that's the first time you're using such a field. Then sign the field and save the file. The signature can later be verified using the public key from your signature profile...

That's new to me. Can you point me to some documentation/guidance on doing that successfully?

@try67 wrote:
And no, this is not a simple subject, especially when it comes to governmental agencies. You have to do it just right.

Indeed. I am no stranger to this particular large US federal agency. It is classically bureacratic (that is, very old school) and while it's employees are doing their best (I have no complaints about those I interact with), its systems are generally pretty rigid and not tolerant of deviations from what they expect. You either get things right, or nothing moves forward.

Thanks for any further help you can offer.

Report · Dec 30, 2022

It says the file is secured in the window title. If that's the case, and there are no signature fields in it then the only way to sign it is how you did it. If that's not how they want you to do it then you need to ask them for direct instructions.

I'm attaching a sample file I created with a signature field. You'll see that it appears in the Signatures panel (yes, the file must be opened first for this to appear), and you can also click it directly. This will prompt you to create a new signature profile, backed by a password and saved on your local computer. This is the true way of digitally signing a PDF file, unless you use an external service like Adobe Sign. The "Fill & Sign" method is not really the same thing. It might be good enough in some cases, but most likely not when dealing with official documents.