5 Tips for working anywhere with Acrobat–Work with forms and signatures

Tip #4: Everyone at some point needs to fill out forms & add signatures. Since you don’t always have access to a printer, let me show you how to stay digital when working with forms & signatures. As a government employee, I recommend you don’t use Fill & Sign in Acrobat or Reader for work. It’s not compliant for most government purposes - but … if you’re registering for a conference, or filling out a permission slip for a school trip, sure. It’s quick and easy and works on mobile. However, let’s first focus on what you can do at work. You might have a PIV or CAC card that includes a digital identity, or digital certificate, or your agency may have licensed Adobe Sign Enterprise that you can use within Acrobat DC to sign - or even request signatures. So let’s take a look. Here’s a 2-page Loan Application that my agency has created. First, I’ll select Certificates tool and select Digitally Sign from the toolbar. This PDF doesn’t have form fields so I’m asked to click and drag to add my signature. I’m prompted to select my digital certificate or digital ID. If you use a PIV or CAC card. once you enter your ID in the card reader, you’ll see a similar screen. I click Sign and I’m done. The blue bar shows that it’s Signed and that all signatures - in this case my signature, is valid. If you ever receive a digitally signed PDF. You can click on Signature Panel. Select Validate All and Acrobat will check the validity of the signatures. OK - now let’s move on to Adobe Sign. I’ll use the same PDF file so it’s easy to see the differences between signing options. Select Adobe Sign, add the email addresses of the signers. Since this document requires 2 signatures, I’ve added 2 email addresses, if you need to have someone on the CC, you can add that as well. I’ll add a subject and could edit the message if needed and then I click Specify Where to Sign. And Adobe Sign opens and guides me where to add the fillable fields or signatures. As you can see on the right, since I specified 2 signers, I have 2 options available. I’ll select first one (the yellow one) - and then just click on the page where I want the signature to go. Acrobat knows this is a signature because it ‘read’ the words “Authorized Signature” as a result of Adobe Sensei. I’ll select the pink or 2nd signer and click to add that signature field as well. Now I’ll add the rest of the fields. Names, Social Security numbers, and dates. Then I just click send and the document is on its way to the signers. Now let’s see the experience for the signer. She receives an email asking her to review and sign the loan application. Similar to what we saw in tip #2, all Akira needs is an email address and any device. Laptop, tablet, mobile phone, whatever. To review and sign the application. She clicks on Review & Sign and the document is opened in Adobe Sign. The message is displayed and then Akira is prompted to complete the fields and sign. She can sign by typing her name, drawing her name if she has a touch screen. Or in my case, I did a poor job with my mouse - let’s clear that! You could add an image - if you took a photo with your phone of your signature. Or you can add a mobile number to have Adobe Sign send a text message so that the signer can use her finger to sign on her mobile device. I’ll just stick with typing in her name. Click Apply. Add her printed name, and social security number. Whoops I added too many digits. Adobe Sign knows that social security numbers are 10 digits, so I’m prompted to fix my mistake. And now that everything is complete and correct, she clicks Click to Sign, and the document is on it’s way to the 2nd signer - John Jacobs. Now - let’s go back to Acrobat. If I need to check on the status of the document, I select Home to return to the Home view. Select All Agreements, select open Adobe Sign, and I can see the status of all agrements I’ve sent. There are four out for signature right now. I can select the one waiting for John Jacobs. I can remind him to sign, or click, and take action or review activity. Before moving to Tip 5, let’s review the Fill & Sign tool. As I mentioned earlier, Fill & Sign is not compliant for most government purposes. But what if you’re registering for a conference? Or filling out a permission slip? You can use Fill & Sign in Acrobat or Reader. Let’s look at using the Fill & Sign tool in the Adobe Reader mobile app. I just open the app, select the form to fill out, click the pencil tool to select Fill & Sign. I’ll zoom in to see a little bit better, and then just click, and click, and click. Because my profile was filled in, I didn’t even have to type anything! And when I create my signature, I have three options. Draw my signature, import an image, or just write my name on a piece of paper and take a photo of it. Then just click on the screen and I’m done. Using the tools to stay digital. -