How to unlock the attachments on an unlocked, signed form?

[carole_at_jcu]

Our office is using a PDF fillable form that requires one digital signature. These are submitted by university students and the digital signature is from their faculty advisor. We have asked the advisors to not lock the forms from further editing because our office completes other data fields. Almost always, the student's form will require minor revisions from the student. Since the form isn't locked, this works fine. We don't require the advisor to sign again.

However, we also require supporting documents to be attached to the form. Almost always, the students need to revise their attached documents. Once the form is signed, we find that the attachments are locked. Attachments can't be added or deleted from the locked PDF. Can we set our form to allow the attachments to be edited even after being signed?

Or, how can our office remove the digital signature so the students could edit their form, including the attachments, then get a new signature? Thank you in advance!

[try67]

You can't, really. Applying a digital signature is supposed to be the very last thing you do to a PDF file (except for applying another signature to it). You would need to send them unsigned copies, or have them save the attachments as separate files so they could fill them in themselves, then sign and submit them on their own.

[carole_at_jcu]

Thank you, try67. I wonder why we ARE able to edit the form but not the attachments window. It's frustrating because we wanted to allow for minor revisions, and when we tested it out before implementing the form, it was editable even after it was signed.

Unfortunately, we didn't test out whether the attachment window was editable, and this is our problem now.

[George_Johnson]

You can set it up so that certain changes are allowed after signing. This makes sense for certain workflows, such as those involving forms and commenting. It is possible to set up signature fields so that form fill-in and commenting is allowed after signing, and commenting can include file attachments, so you should be able to configure things like you want.

Edited to remove incorrect info

[carole_at_jcu]

If it's possible to use JavaScript to preconfigure the signature field (there is only one) to allow for revisions to the attachments window, I would definitely need help with that!

[George_Johnson · Accepted solution]

The users would have to apply attachments as comments (as opposed to non-comment file attachments that Acrobat allows), and these would be in addition to any existing ones, so they wouldn't be able to remove any that are already there. Is that OK?

[carole_at_jcu]

THANK YOU!!! I didn't know that by opening the Comments Tool, the attachments appear! And yes, one can delete or add attachments as comments yet they still appear in the Attachments window. I learn something new every day!  THANK YOU SO MUCH!