- Default Signing Format: Choose a default signing format based on PKCS#7 or CAdES standard. PKCS #7 - Detached is selected by default.
- Appearance Styles: Manage the signature appearance templates.
- Signing & Verifications
- Sign the document immediately after the signature is placed: Check this option to sign the document immediately when you place the signature on the document. By default, this option is checked. When it is unchecked, you will need to click Sign Document to apply the signature after placing it on the document. You can still modify the document before applying the signature.
- Control how and when signatures are verified: click Change Settings to choose options.
- Verify signatures when the document is opened: If this option is checked, Foxit PDF Editor will verify the signatures when the document is opened, and will display the signature verification results in the Digital Signatures panel. By default, the option is checked.
- When document has valid but untrusted signatures, prompt to review and trust signers: With the option selected, if the signature (not including certified signatures) is verified as valid but is applied by an untrusted signer with a certificate that doesn’t chain up to a trust anchor, a message box appears in the top-right corner of the application window to inform you the document includes signatures from signers that you haven’t trusted yet. You can click Manage Trust in the message box to trust the signer. More information, please refer to Trusted Certificates. To make sure that the notification message is displayed successfully, please check the Show the message which affects the next step option in the preferences about Notification Messages.
- Verification Behavior
- Require certificate revocation checking to succeed whenever possible during signature verification: Specify whether or not to check the revocation status of certificates while verifying signatures.
- Use expired timestamps: Uses the secure time provided by the document timestamp or the timestamp embedded in the signature, even if the timestamp’s certificate has expired. The option is selected by default. With the option unselected, the time provided by the expired timestamps will be discarded and the verification time will be the time at which signature was applied or the current time in the system based on your setting on Verification Time.
- Ignore document validation information: Specify whether to ignore the related certificate revocation information embedded in the document when validating signatures.
Verification Time
Verify Signature Using: You can check the digital signature for validity based on the time when the signature was created, the time provided by the timestamp embedded in the signature, or the current time in your system.
- Verification Information: Select an option to specify whether to add verification information to the signed PDF. Ask when verification information is too big is selected by default.
- Windows Integration: Specify whether to trust all root certificates in the Windows Certificate Store when validating signatures and certified documents. Checking these options may compromise security. Please make sure that you trust all the root certificates before enabling these features.
Saving Settings
Save signed file as a copy named ‘filename_signed.pdf’: Check this option to save the signed file as a copy named ‘filename_signed.pdf’ after applying the digital signature. When you sign multiple PDF files, you can also specify the file name in Output Options. The file name you specified in Output Options during signing will take precedence over the settings in Signature preferences.
PKCS#11 Modules and Tokens
If you use PKCS#11 devices such as smart card readers or tokens to sign documents, set up the PKCS#11 modules before signing documents.
- 1) Click Module Settings…. In the pop-up PKCS#11 Modules and Tokens dialog box, click Attach Module.
- 2) Browse to the location of the PKCS#11 module (.dll file) on your computer, select it, and click Open.
- 3) The module should now appear in the list of available modules in the dialog box. You may need to enter a PIN or password to access the module, depending on the security settings of the module.
- 4) Once the module is loaded, you should be able to use it to sign documents in Foxit PDF Editor.
Note: The specific steps may vary depending on the PKCS#11 module being used. It's always a good idea to consult the documentation for the module for specific instructions.