Validate that mass‑submitted stewardship agreements are valid and archived: compare the signed versions against the or…
Open the PDF document that contains multiple digital signatures.
Go to the right pane and expand the Signatures panel.
In the Signatures panel, right-click on the top-level signature entry (the document root) or in an empty area within the panel.
Select Validate All Signatures from the context menu.
Review the validation results for each signature in the Signatures panel; a green checkmark indicates a valid signature, while a warning or error icon indicates issues.
Best practiceIf you see signature warnings, check that all signers' certificates are trusted in your Acrobat certificate store, as mismatches are a common cause of validation errors.
You can quickly see the status of all signatures at once in the Signatures panel after validation.
This runs in the Acrobat app - there is no separate API for this task.
A trusted identity is a digital certificate that you have manually set in Acrobat as trustworthy. It matters because Acrobat uses this trust to confirm if a digital signature is truly from the person it claims to be. If you trust the identity, Acrobat can confirm the signature's validity and that the document has not been changed since it was signed. This helps you know if a document is authentic and reliable.
If your digital signature shows a question mark, it means Acrobat cannot confirm its validity yet. This often happens if the signer's certificate is not in your list of trusted identities, or if Acrobat needs to connect to a timestamp server. You need to validate the signature to get more details and potentially add the signer's certificate to your trusted list.
Verifying certificate information is crucial because it tells you who signed the document and if their identity is real. A digital certificate is like a digital ID card. By checking its details, you ensure the signature belongs to the claimed person and that the certificate itself is valid and has not expired or been revoked. This step confirms the signer's trustworthiness and the document's integrity.
| Feature | Valid Signature | Self-Validating Signature (LTV) |
|---|---|---|
| Description | A signature confirmed as valid at the time of checking, based on current trust settings and online checks. | A signature that includes all necessary information (like timestamps and revocation status) within the document itself, allowing it to be validated even if external sources are unavailable later. |
| Benefit | Confirms authenticity and integrity at the moment. | Ensures long-term validity without needing to connect to external servers or trust lists in the future. |
| How to get it | Requires current trust relationships and potentially online checks. | Requires adding verification information (LTV) to the signature, often during the signing process or later. |