Sign Dynamic Document

[Former Community Member]

Hello,

I have a dynamic flowed PDF form which has calculated fields, validations and multiple digital signatures. My digital signatures are "Document Signature" type and no locking occurs for fields after signing. When I open the form, before changing any field I applied one of the digital signature. However yellow warning mark appears in the signature field saying "..signature has not been altered.., there have been subsequent changes to the document". What can be the problem that a warning mark occurs? How a dynamic form with calculations, validations, invisible areas, and multiple digital signatures can be organized?

Waiting for response,

Thanks.

Asiye

[Former Community Member]

If you have control on the registry of all machines that open the file, you can set a value that hides this yellow triangle.



Tal

tal@arx.com

[Former Community Member]

Hello again,

I do not want to hide the yellow triangle, I could not understand why this appears although I do not change any field.



Asiye

[Former Community Member]

I guess some of your scripts let Adobe thinks that something has changed. I saw cases where these changes not only lead to a yello triangle, but actually invalidated the signature.



You can enter the signature properties, choose the document tab and then press the "Compute modifications list" button at the bottom. It might help you understand what exactly has changed



I am sure it is not interesting the whole forum, but I am very interested in the way you are implementing the digital signatures in your project. I'll appreciate if you can send me a mail with some information, like, how many users are signing, how you are going to generate keys and certificates and where you are going to store them how many documents you have etc.



Thanks

Tal (tal@arx.com)

[Robert_Hirst]

It's not from the scripts, to put it very simply, when the second or later person clicks on the signature
field they are changing the form data, which is exactly what the warning says.



E.g. Form with 2 signature boxes, BoxA, BoxB.



Person 1 signs BoxA, this stores the contents of the form, including BoxB which is empty.



Person 2 then signs BoxB, which stores the contents of the form at signing time.



When the document is opened the contents of the form now match the contents stored when BoxB was signed, but for BoxA the content is different (there is now data in what was previously a blank field) so the warning is triggered.



The warning firing is the correct behavior, as if there was no warning then person A could sign a particular form which person B could then change the contents of without their knowledge, and it would still appears as though they signed it. If the previous version was not stored, and a warning not issued, then signing a document would be pointless.



You can make certain fields be locked after signing, and this can be handy as if you lock all the fields which should not be changeable after the first signature, then you can be pretty sure that the data hasn't changed, and the warning can be safely ignored (but as far as I'm aware, not disabled).

[Former Community Member]

Robert,



I tend to agree with every word, the only problem that it doesn't describe the case here as far as I understand.

Asiye is complaining that although he signed the document only once, and before doing any change he sees the yellow triangle.



Tal

[Former Community Member]

Yes Tal,

It is exacly same as you said. Thank Robert anyway about desriptions. I have faced with the problem when there exist a radio button group in mu form and a change event is defined. While signing document, can signing mechanism touch other events like "change"?

[Former Community Member]

Hi Again,

I have tried to test digital signature attitude towards other object changes and events.

A radioButton, radiobuttongroup, checkbox, dropdown list, textfield, button, barcode and two document signature fields are placed in my form. I save the form and open with Acrobat 8.1.1. Before changing any value of the form and apply a digital signature, signature is valid. When I change one of the radio, radiobuttongroup element, checkbox in my form and apply signature after that, "The revision ... not altered, .. subsequent changes .." warning appears. Other fields (dropdown, textfield, button, barcode, document signature) changes do not give this warning.

Is there a problem in radio and checkbox selections? What can be the problem that cause document signature contains a subsequent change?

[Robert_Hirst]

Do you get a grey question mark over the first signature when you change a form field value after signing?



As soon as you change a single value, be it checkbox, radio button, signature or other, the signature should be marked as unchecked. There should be a grey question mark over it until the form is saved or the signature is revalidated at which point it will change to the yellow warning.

[Former Community Member]

Robert,

I get a yellow warning triangle. But the case is: Form I have has readio button group,

1. Change the selection of radio button group

2. Apply signature.

3. Save document to another place.

4. Signature is marked with yellow triangle.

5. When I open the form, yellow triangle is still there.



So signature is applied after all changes done. However radio button or checkbox violates sth.

Thanks.

Asiye

[Robert_Hirst]

Okay, I understand now, you are only using one of the signature fields but still get the warning.



If it's not from the multiple signatures, then I'd agree it's likely to be script related. Have you tried commenting out all the script blocks (particularly on ready and init type events) and seeing if the problem still occurs?

[Former Community Member]

Yes Robert,

In my example form I have no script inserted. You can also test same in a blank form.

1. Drag and drop 2 radio button combined exclusively. Name one of them "Yes", other as "No"

2. Drag and drop a document signature field.

3. Open form. (I use Acrobat 8.1.1)

4. Select "Yes"

5. Apply digital signature.

6. Let see what happens.



Thanks

[Robert_Hirst]

Okay, with those steps I do get the warning (I had tried a checkbox, but not a radio button group), but it disappears if I open and close the file.



Interestingly setting the signature field to lock all fields in a document results an actual validation error message rather than just a warning, and this message also disappears when the document is reopened.



Does the warning disappear when the file is closed and reopened for you also?

[Former Community Member]

Yes that is right, when I open the form again signature has no warning. Is this a bug or some trick we dont know?

Thanks

Asiye