Acrobat 9: Custom Signature Appearances, Historically Speaking

When I started teaching Adobe Acrobat (this was way back in the 1770s), I had a very bright student named John. He was asked by his colleagues to apply his digital signature to an important PDF file. The document had something to do with government.

Since they hadn't taken an Acrobat class and knew little of Acrobat's advanced features, many of John's colleagues simply placed the default Acrobat Digital Signature on the document.

Not John. John learned Acrobat on his crude computer (it was made of wood, naturally). And during his Acrobat training, John learned that he could go to Acrobat's Preferences ([Ctrl] K on a PC, or [Cmd] K on a Mac), select Security and then click New next to the Appearances list box.

John chose to configure his Digital Signature's custom appearance by importing a scan of his actual signature. He chose just a few text descriptors to show, like Name, Date & Reason–to keep his custom digital signature appearance unique and uncluttered. He gave his custom appearance a name (he used his own–he wasn't very creative).

John attended his group's big convention in Philadelphia that July. It was hot, but the pretzels and cheese steaks were awesome, so they say.

When John's colleague Thomas sent him the all-important PDF file, John grabbed Acrobat's Digital Signature tool (I think the icon was a quill back then) and drew a rather large rectangle.

John then entered his secret password in the dialog box (they only had 2-bit encryption back then–I'll let you make the joke on this). Unlike his unlearned colleagues, John knew that if his digital signature was to be noticed, it had to look different. He confidently clicked the down arrow next to Appearance, found his newly-created custom appearance and selected it. He then chose I am the author of this document from the reason for signing.

John Hancock's digital signature was huge, and unique. Everyone at the convention was very impressed… except Thomas (it was Thomas who actually authored this important historical PDF). In the end, Thomas had the last laugh… his house is on the nickel today, and John just has an insurance company.

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