If you’ve made it this far looking for a way to sign a PDF with a digital certificate. That’s because Now is the time to sign the documents. which is in this type of format The practice is becoming more widespread in legal traffic.
Once you have enabled your digital signature on your device. Following this type of procedure will be much easier..but so that you have no doubts We’ll explain to you how to do it.
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Basic operations of signing a digital certificate in a PDF document
Signing a PDF with a digital certificate means that we add an electronic signature to the document. prove our identity
In summary, a A digital certificate is an electronic file issued by a certifying agency. (in the case of Spain, the National Mint and Stamp Factory) and which unquestionably guarantee the identity of the owner.
It is something like a digital credential. How to make sure Even if you are not in the same location as the other party interested in signing the document. The signature that will appear on it is yours.
When we sign a PDF through a digital certificate lWhat the software does is use the certificate’s private key to create a unique signature. This signature represents the encrypted document and the signer’s identity.
All of this can be a little complicated, though. But you have to stick with that idea. Your electronic signature on PDF documents It is as valid as signing such documents both in physical form and in person. The other party has the same security regarding your identity.
Why is it useful to know how to sign a PDF with a digital certificate?
Because this is an action that you will have to take sooner or later. This is because the use of digital signatures to carry out all types of procedures is becoming more and more common.Even with government administration
Some additional advantages of this system are as follows:
Authentication of the signer
As we have seen before Digital signatures offer a high level of security. And make sure whoever signs the document is really who they say they are.
completeness of documents
By signing the PDF with a digital certificate. The completeness of the document will be certified therefore. Content can no longer be altered or changed. When the signature is saved
I don’t deny
This means that anyone signs a document with their digital certificate. He could not later deny that he had done so. This is very important when we talk about signing contracts or other types of binding documents.
Compliance with the law
In Spain, the use of digital signatures is supported by such a legal framework. Be aware of the authenticity of electronic signatures Including that done through digital certificates. So it’s a safe and legal way to get this done.
Speeding up the process
You no longer need to type your signature by hand. Scan and resend the document Digital signatures in PDF documents help speed up the contracting process and save time and material resources.
How to sign a PDF with a digital certificate step by step
Now we know how this actually works. It’s time to know what we need to do to digitally sign a PDF.
The first thing to do is download Acrobat Reader DC to the computer that we will use. If you don’t have one yet You can download it here. In addition, it is very important that Our digital certificates are also installed on the devices we use to perform management operations.
next, We open the document we want to work with in Acrobat and click on “Tools”..When doing so We’ll show you several icons, including the “Certificate” icon, which is the one we’re interested in. You can quickly identify it because it has a feather shape and looks like an official medal or recognition medal.
On the next screen we select the option “Digitally signed” A pop-up window tells us that we need to select the area where we want the signature to appear. We select and click on “Accept”.
In the next step we select the electronic certificate that we want to use for signature and click on “Continue” We click on “Sign” and now we can save the signed document. However, if the certificate is PIN protected before completing the process, We will need to provide this code to verify our identity.
If you do the whole process well. The document will display the inserted digital signature. It has the following format:
Digitally signed by XXX XXX XXX – 0000000000A
Date 2023.01.01
12:35:15 +02’00’
That is, not only will there be a record of the document being signed. But it also includes the time period in which you operate. This could be extremely important in the future. In cases where it is necessary to prove that you knew or did not know the contents of the document at a particular time.
Verify the signature of a digitally signed document with Acrobat Reader DC.
If all you want is to verify the authenticity of the signature. Open the document that you have already signed and click on the “Signature Panel” option that you will see at the top right part of the screen.
This will give you access to various signatures. that can appear in the document Right-click on what you want to check and select Options. “Check signature” If everything is correct The signature appears with a green “v” or similar symbol.
Hovering the cursor over the signature tells you that the signature is valid. The certificate used to sign and There have been no changes to the document since it was signed. Finally, you need to specify that the document is signed by the current user.
When it comes to how to sign a PDF with a digital certificate. The steps are very simple. And as you can see, this method is quite easy to use, so We encourage you to stop being afraid of this type of digital signature.Because it has been seen that it is very useful, safe and future-proof.