If you are using a test certificate to digitally sign a PDF file from Adobe Acrobat, the digital signature will not immediately appear as valid. The free test certificates generated by the SSL.com sandbox are intended for test purposes, do not undergo validation and are not automatically trusted. This is in contrast to using SSL.com production certificates which are issued after an identity validation process and are trusted by Adobe readers by default.
SSL.com’s Document Signing Certificates are trusted worldwide to digitally sign and certify Adobe PDF documents with secure digital signatures.
Requirements
There are 3 requirements for this guide:
a) A test document signing certificate: In this guide, we are using an SSL.com test document signing certificate that can be ordered using SSL.com’s sandbox/test environment. For a detailed guide on how you can create an SSL.com sandbox account, please refer to the article: Using the SSL.com Sandbox for Testing and Integration.
b) A document signing application: In this case, we will be using SSL.com’s eSigner remote signing service which securely stores digital certificates in the cloud. Specifically, we will be using eSigner Express, SSL.com’s GUI web application that lets users create digital signatures on most internet browsers, with no need for hardware tokens to store the digital certificate.
c) A PDF file opener: In this guide, we are using Adobe Acrobat.
Steps
1. Login to the eSigner sandbox environment at https://try.esigner.com/. If you do not yet have an account, select the Create account option.
8. Left-click the particular digital signature that you want to validate.
11. Adobe will display the two messages:
a) Signature validity is UNKNOWN.
b) The signer’s identity is unknown because it has not been included in your list of trusted certificates and none of its parent certificates are trusted certificates.
Click Show Signer’s Certificate to validate the signature and the signer’s identity.
SSL.com’s Document Signing Certificates are trusted worldwide to digitally sign and certify Adobe PDF documents with secure digital signatures.
14. Another dialog box will appear providing you options on which cases you want the test certificate to be trusted:
a) Use this certificate as a trusted root: There should be a tick in the check box for this option. This will enable your test certificate to be directly trusted by Adobe.
b) Signed documents or data: Adobe sets a default check mark for this option.
c) Certified documents: This feature is optional and allows the test certificate to be trusted for Dynamic content, Embedded high privilege JavaScript, and Privileged system operations (networking, printing, file access, etc.). You can leave this feature un-checked if you do not need any or all of these three functions.
Once you have made your choice, click the OK button.
15. The test certificate is now trusted! Close the PDF file, re-open it, and you should then be able to see the digital signature shown by Adobe Acrobat as valid. You will also see that the exclamation point symbol is now replaced by a check mark in a green circle, indicating that the signature is indeed valid.
18. You will then see that Adobe now shows the signature and the signer’s identity as both valid. Click the Show Signer’s Certificate… button again to see further details about the test certificate that is now trusted.
