Trusting PDF Signatures in Adobe Reader®

How to verify PDF Signatures?

Do you need to get your SigningHub signed documents automatically verified in Adobe Reader? If so, this brief note explains how to update the settings in Adobe Reader software to automatically trust SigningHub PDF signatures. If you only review documents inside SigningHub then you can ignore these steps.

Trust management

Firstly a quick background on how trust is managed in Adobe products. Adobe runs two programs for recognising Certificate Authorities (CAs) known as Adobe CDS and Adobe AATL programs. If you hold a certificate from a CA registered under one of these programs then your certificate can be used in SigningHub and your signed PDF documents will be automatically trusted by anyone using Adobe Reader. You do not need to do anything else!

On the other hand if you are using the default SigningHub server-held certificates and need your PDF signatures to be verified in Adobe Reader then you do need to ask your relying parties to follow the steps below. This will be a one-time action to import our CA into your Adobe Reader:

1- Download our Root CA certificate Click here to open (FDF, 60 KB)

2- Click the button shown below:

Trusting Ascertia Root CA3 via Acrobat FDF Data Exchange to verify digital signatures

3- Finally select the check boxes shown below and then press OK:

Trusting Ascertia Root CA3 via Acrobat FDF Data Exchange to verify digital signatures - Import Contact

That’s it!
Your relying parties will now be able to automatically verify and trust PDF signatures from SigningHub. They will see e.g. :

SigningHub created signed document trusted in Adobe Acrobat

Clicking signature properties button provides more detailed information about the signature verification, signer and timestamp. SigningHub creates PDF digital signatures which come up with embedded timestamp and revocation information. Signature Properties in Adobe Acrobat for SigningHub created signed document

Signature Properties in Adobe Acrobat for SigningHub created signed document