Knowledgebase

What is a Digital Signature?

A digital signature/ID is more commonly known as a digital certificate. Digital certificates are required to digitally sign PDF documents. Digital certificates are typically issued by a certificate authority (CA), which is a trusted third-party entity that issues digital certificates for other parties to use. There are many commercial third-party certificate authorities from which you can purchase a digital certificate. Many institutions, governments, and corporations issue their own certificates.

A digital certificate is necessary for a digital signature because it provides the public key that can be used to validate the private key that is associated with a digital signature. Digital certificates make it possible for digital signatures to be used as a way to authenticate digital information.

Though you can create a "self-signed" certificate on your local machine, it will only allow you to record and verify the state of the PDF document when the digital signature was applied -  it does not verify the identity of the signer. If you want to comply with the most stringent legal and regulatory requirements then you will need a digital certificate from a certificate authority (CA).

Obtaining a Digital Certificate

A list of international certificate authorities that you can use to obtain your certificate-based digital ID or timestamp service is available below. You can use digital IDs from these providers to start signing documents securely with PDF-XChange products today.

**Note that this is not a complete list and a quick internet search for Digital ID Certificate Authority for your country will provide you with other options.