Adobe Digital Signature

acrobat-pdf digital-signature

Digital Signature

Digitally Sign a PDF
Add a Certificate
Trust a Signer's Certificate

Digitally Sign a PDF

Note: If you have not installed your digital certificate on your computer, please read through the Enroll, Install and Publish a Digital Certificate article before you begin.

Digital Certificates are only available for Staff, Faculty and Graduate Students. Requests from Undergraduate Students will be denied.

Open the PDF form you want your signature on, in Adobe.
If you have received a document with no active signature fields, click on the Tools menu on the top-left.

Tools menu in Adobe Reader.

Select the Certificates icon > Open.

Certificates icon in Adobe Reader.

Go back to the tab of your selected PDF, click on the Digitally Sign option that appears in the middle of the taskbar.

Digitally Sign option in Adobe Reader.

Click and drag to draw the area where you would like the signature to appear using your mouse.
- Once you finish dragging out the desired size, you will continue to the signing process.
"Sign with a Digital ID" wizard will appear.
Select the Digital ID certificate you want to use for signing > Continue. If you need to add a certificate, please visit Add a Certificate below.

Sign with a Digital id wizard with Continue button.

Review your signature on the pop-up window and click Sign.

Screen to review your signature and sign.

Enter the password you set earlier while downloading the certificate to your computer > Allow.

Note: You will get this prompt to enter your password only if you set a password while creating your digital certificate.

The "Save As" window will come up.
- Save the form in the location of your choice.

Add a Certificate

As featured in the steps above, to add a new digital certificate from the Sign with a Digital ID window, select Configure New Digital ID.

Sign with a Digital ID window with Configure New Digital ID selected

Select Use a Digital ID from a file and click Continue.

Configure a Digital ID for signing with use a Digital ID from file selected.

Select Browse and locate the digital certificate you downloaded while following the Enroll, Install and Publish a Digital Certificate article. Enter the password created for the certificate and then click Continue.

Find a Digital File with selecting a digital file selected

To confirm you would like to add the certificate select Continue. The newly added certificate will appear on the Sign with a Digital ID pick list when digitally signing a pdf as seen above.

Add Digital IDs from a file with continue selected.

Trust a Signer's Certificate

Note: Adjusting trust settings should be done with caution. Only trust certificates from known and reliable sources.

To add the certificate that was used to apply the digital signature into Adobe’s list of Trusted Identities open the Signature panel or click on a digital signature.
Right-click the signature and then select Show Signature Properties.

Signature Validation Status window with Signature Properties button highlighted.