Question: How to Remove Certification from Certified Document?

[Gareth29665705r3k4]

I am aiming to combine several PDFs into a single PDF using the "Combine Files" tool in Adobe Acrobat, but one of the files has a Warnings/Error: Certified documents cannot be merged", which is accompanied by another error message: "Acrobat does not support the conversion of one or more of your files to PDF. Please remove these files or go to Settings and choose the PDF Portfolio option."

The Certified document does not need to be formally signed or approved in any way in the resulting combined file.

Using the PDF Portfolio option is not preferred, as the document would benefit from the pages being in a specific order, inserting appendices in-line in sequence, as opposed to separate files.

How can I remove 'Certification" on a PDF file?

[Abambo]

See here: https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/kb/edit-signed-PDF.html

It looks that depending on what has been done to the document, it is not possible to remove the certification.

The possibility I see is to print and scan.

[Chris Norris2]

This is a rather frustrating answer for people that have to BATES number 20,000 pages or more at a time for court ordered document production, with many documents "certified."  I hope one day that there is a better way to handle this situation other than print & scan.

[erick_2646]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I was able to acheive the desire result by "extracting" the certified pages. That way the certification was removed. I hope this helps.

Have a good one!

[Bridget273237493y56]

I just converted the document to image format in Adobe (see the Convert tab next to Edit). When converted, the three-page PDF became three separate image files. I needed to combine a bunch of PDFs into one for a job application and my transcript wouldn't combine because it was "certified," so this was my workaround. 

[alex_7370]

There is a free website called CombinePDF that allows for the conversion of certified PDFs to JPGs or skips this step and combines them directly. Obviously, it's not a solution for sensitive documents, but it allowed me to combine certified transcripts as you stated and I was able to skip the jpg conversion step.