Signing a document

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LogicalDOC offers PDF signing capabilities. In case you want to sign a document that is not PDF, it's PDF conversion will be signed.

Top-Level View

From a high-level functional point of view, here is what users need to be able to do using the digital signature:

  1. User A creates a certificate.
  2. User A signs a document.
  3. User B installs the root certificate in a PDF viewer.
  4. User B opens a document, previews the document with a visible signature and can check its authenticity against the root certificate.

Generating a Certificate

To be able to sign documents, users need to have a certificate. Every user of the application can have a certificate. However, this not automatic: users have to generate it. When users generate their certificate, they are asked to choose a password, that will be required to sign the document.

NOTE

Make sure you remember your password (or store it secured) as there is currently no mechanism for resetting lost passwords.

Generate your certificate

The first step to be able to sign documents is to generate your own digital certificate in the system. Select the menu Account > Certificate

Here put press Generate Certificate.

Signing a document

To be able to sign you need the Sign permission. If you have it, open the Signature tab of the document's properties panel.

  1. Type a comment in the Reason box.
  2. Click on the Sign now button.

Your signature is displayed on the Signature tab. It is composed of your certificate, your organization's certificate, and the expiration date of your certificate.

You will also see a new red icon indicating that the document was signed.

You can now click on the red icon to open the signed version of the document.

Verifying the Signature of the PDF File

To verify the signature of the PDF, you need to:

  1. Install the public root certificate available from the Root Certificate section of the Signature tab: Click on the Download the public root certificate for your PDF viewer link to download the certificate.
  2. Follow your operating system's usual certificate installation steps.
  3. Download the signed PDF file by clicking on the red icon that appears in the document's record

Visual positioning

If in the signature form you also choose the Visual positioning option, you will be asked to position and size the signature area inside the document.

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