Adding a digital signature to a secured PDF document

[Cindy James]

I used to be able to add my digital signature to a secured PDF, now I can't, why?

When I say used to, I mean I just did this on Nov 24, 2020.

Now when I try to add my signature it is greyed out.

This function saves me from having to print, sign and scan this document to add my signature.

What gives?

PS  I created this fillable PDF for a coworker as we are moving away from MS Office.

My coworker fills in the form, secures it, sends it to me, I add my signature and send it back.  Now I can no longer add my signature digitally.  We have done this literally 60+ times since I have created this form.  Nothing has changed at our end that we can tell, we are following the same process.

[Amal.]

Hi Cindy,

Hope you are doing well and sorry for the trouble. As described you are unable to add the digital signature to a secured PDF file.

We need some more information to better understand the issue:

- Are there any signature fields on the document assigned to you?

- What is the workflow/steps your coworker is doing to fill and send the document to you?  Is he sending it as an email attachment or via Adobe Sign ?

As mentioned your coworker secures the PDF file, would you mind sharing the steps he is doing to secure the PDF file?

If the PDF doesn't contain any signature field assigned to you, it is secured and signing is locked, we can not add the signature to the PDF file. Please check the document restriction summary and see if signing is allowed or not. Open the PDF > go to File > Properties > under security tab, check the document restriction summary. If signing is not allowed please and ask the coworker to remove the security from the PDF and share it with you.

Let us know how it goes.

Regards

Amal

[Cindy James]

Hi Amal,

Some history on how we got here:

The document in question used to be a word doc that my coworker would turn into a pdf image and print.  I would then review and sign, she would then scan and distribute.  

Then covid and working from home happened and my coworker would email me the pdf image of this doc and I would print, sign, scan and email back to her.  Realising I was wasting paper and ink, I was shown how to add my signature(img) to Adobe acrobat and I was able to just drop my signature right onto the pdf image that my coworker sent me and email it back, no longer printing and scanning.  This was fabulous.

Then our organization decided to do away with MS Office.

So I took the old word doc and converted it into a fillable pdf and using the "protect" tool I secured the document from editing and geve it to my coworker.

Keeping in mind I knew nothing about doing this, I took a word doc removed all the fillable fields that existed, imported it into Acrobat, inseted fillable text boxes, dropdown menues and calendar fields using the "Prepare form" tool.  I then used the "Protect" tool to add password protection against editing.  I then showed my coworker how to go into the properties/security using the change settings under the Document security section, then in the permissions area go to the "changes allowed" and change the dropdown entry from "Commenting, filling in form fields, and signing existing signature fields" to "none", then saving the form.  To the amatures that we are, this appeared to turn the form into a pdf image.  She would then email the form to me, I would add my signature to the form and send it back to her, just like I did when she used to send me the word doc saved as a pdf image.  We have worked like this for several months.

Now, on the form that I created, the areas that we are adding our signatures are not what I think you are referring to as "signature fields".  Remember I am muddling my way through this to fill a gap in our organization that no one else was filling.

The box in which we add our "signature" is just a fillable text box that we type our name in, then we add the image of our signature next to it.  This was the way from the old word doc/pdf image.  My coworker that I created the document for and I are in different departments, she isnt always the person that fills out this form, and I am not always the person that signs off on this document from my department. More often than not we are, but not always.

The issue is now when she sends the protected document to me, I open it and click the "Sign document by typing or drawing a signature" button, the options to add my signature is greyed out.  For the past several months I have been able to take the image of my signature and drop it onto the form next to my name.  This has been the way for many months and we did it this way as recently as Nov 24, 2020.

Until yesterday.  Now this does not work any more.

[Amal.]

Hi Cindy

Thank you for describing the issue and the whole scenario in detail and sorry for all the trouble and the confusion you had to go through.

Would you mind sharing the steps you are doing to add the signature image next to your name in the document.

Also please share the pdf file with us so that we can check it at our end and assist you better.

As mentioned your coworker is securing the PDF with  a password and then sending it to you via Email as an attachement.  Do you have the password to unlock the PDF? If not, please ask the coworker to share the password or remove the security so that you can add the signature image to the PDF.  As once the PDF is locked with the password it can not be edited or signed.

For more information about creating and distributing the PDF forms please check the help page: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/acrobat/using/creating-distributing-pdf-forms.html

Regards

Amal