Unsure which type of signature you need? You can check out our article on the difference between electronic and digital signatures to help figure it out. It’s always best to check in with your local laws on the legality of electronic and digital signatures in your country. As these differ not only by country, but sometimes by region, we can’t answer that question for you. At the end of the day, it depends on what type of document you’re signing and what requirements come with it. In many cases, an electronic signature might still be all you need, though. These kinds of signatures don’t offer that extra layer of security digital signatures do, such as the LTV timestamp or advanced encryption. So what’s the difference? Well, for one, our eSign tool lets you place electronic signatures on your files for free. But we also mentioned electronic signatures before. You’ve read a lot about digital signatures and how to create, request, and verify them, now. If you’d like further instructions on how to view this information, we’ve got you covered-just head to How To Verify a Digital Signature. It should include the authority info access, authority key identifier, certificate policies, CRL distribution points, key usage, SHA1 digest of public key, serial number, signature algorithm, subject key identifier, etc. There is also a “Details” tab to show further technical information about our certificate. When you click on the section “Certificate Details”, you gain access to a whole range of information. A notification bar should pop up at the top, allowing you to open a signature window. You can access this information by opening a signed PDF with your reader, for example Adobe. It should display our company name, the validity length of our digital signatures, and the name of the issuer of our digital signature-QuoVadis EU. There should also be a “Signer Info” section, where you can view our certificate.whether it’s been modified since the time of signing.You can view the digital signature’s properties with most PDF readers, which should display the validity summary, containing: Specifically, we use a certificate issued to us, Smallpdf AG, by a Trust Service Provider, QuoVadis EU, to put a digital signature on your document. When you sign a document using our tool, we provide a Simple Electronic Signature that includes a Long-Term Validation- (LTV-) enabled timestamp. When you use Smallpdf to sign the document, the timestamp is recorded when your signature is saved on the document online. The timestamp records the exact time when a user places the signature on the document. The Embedded Timestamp of Digital Signaturesīesides our digital signature, we also add a timestamp that’s signed and can’t be forged. The existing signatures are not impacted or invalidated in this process. When more than one person signs the document, a new digital signature is added after their signature is placed. This means that all the information that was added by the signee, including the signature itself, becomes read-only and uneditable. Whenever a digital signature is added to the document, it’s sealed with this unique number that is attached to that particular signature. The number that is calculated for the document can be verified with pretty much any PDF reader or software.

We’ll keep your digital document available for you to download for 14 days, and will send reminder emails to notify everyone to download the final version of the document.Ī digital signature is a cryptographic process where a large unique number is calculated based on the document’s contents and the attached certificate, which contains the name of the signee.

You and all other signees be notified that the file is ready for download. Hit “Finish & Send” and your recipients will receive a signature request.Īfter the last person has signed the document, Smallpdf will seal the document with a digital fingerprint.

If needed, add text and date fields or checkboxes.

Click “Invite signees” and fill out their names and email addresses.

How to Request a Verifiable Digital Signature To streamline the digital signing process, you can create online signatures on PCs, mobile devices, or even tablets using the method above. If you have electronic documents in other formats, you can simply convert them to PDF before sealing them with a digital signature. You can use our eSign tool to sign any PDF document.

Small sign pdf