Digital Signatures

Digital Signatures at Uppsala University

A digital (electronic) signature is – like a regular signature on a piece of paper – a method for identification (of the person who wrote the document) or authenticity (so that the recipient of a signed document can be sure of who signed the document). Uppsala University offers two ways of signing documents digitally:

Choose the method that best suits your business. Read more about the purport of digital (electronic) signatures here.

If Adobe Acrobat notifies you that the signature is invalid:

At present, some digital signatures cannot be validated without some adjustment in standard PDF-readers from Adobe. This is because Adobe has not listed Uppsala University's certificate issuer Sectigo in its catalogue of trusted certificates. Therefore, programs such as Adobe Acrobat Reader may display a message when opening a document stating that the signature is not verified and that the identity behind the signature is unknown.

The notice does not affect the validity of the PDF-document within the university and documents that are signed digitally as specified in the instructions below are accepted for all activities within Uppsala University.

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If you have any questions, please contact IT Support.

Publicerad: 30 november 2022

Digital Signatures using Sunet eduSign

The eduSign service is available at https://edusign.sunet.se and can be used to quickly and easily upload and digitally sign PDF-documents without installing certificates or any specific software.

Note: EduSign cannot sign documents that have already been signed using a method other than eduSign. If you encounter this problem, it is recommended that you follow the instructions for signing documents using a personal certificate (find instructions here).

Validating Digital Signatures

Documents signed digitally can be validated via a special validation service available here: https://validator.edusign.sunet.se. Use this service if the recipient of your signed document wishes to validate your signature.

Publicerad: 25 augusti 2022

Digital Signatures using Personal Certificates

Quick links:

To be able to sign PDF-documents digitally using a certificate, you must first make sure you have installed a personal certificate. To be able to use a personal certificate, you must first have done or do the following:

Create a Personal Certificate

1. Create a personal certificate

2. Backup your personal certificate

Back up the downloaded certificate file (file name.p12) by copying it to a secure storage location, for example your personal storage space on a server. The personal certificate will be automatically downloaded to the computer you use when creating the certificate, it is therefore inappropriate to do this on a public computer or in an internet café.

Install a Personal Certificate

To simplify the use of the downloaded certificate, you can add it to your computer's certificate manager:

  • macOS: Double-click the certificate file to install it in the macOS Certificate Manager "Keychain Access".
  • Windows: Double-click the certificate file to install it in the Windows Certificate Manager.
  • Linux - Ubuntu: Import the personal certificate downloaded via Firefox: Click "Preferences" | "Advanced" | "View Certificates" | "Your Certificates" and select "Import ...".

Software for Digitally Signing PDF-documents

Several programs have a function for signing a pdf-document digitally. The easiest way is to use "Adobe Acrobat Reader", "PDF-Xchange" or "Libre Office", all of which are free for Uppsala University users.

  • Adobe Acrobat Reader can be installed via your client management system using "Software Center" on Windows computers or "Self Service for Mac" on Apple computers.
  • PDF-XChange is only available through the "Software Center" on Windows computers.

If the above options do not work, follow the instructions via the links below:

Signing a PDF-document using a Personal Certificate

Guides for signing a pdf-document with the downloaded personal certificate:

  • Sign digitally using Adobe Acrobat Reader (both Windows and Apple computers)
  • Sign digitally using PDF-XChange (only for Windows computers)
  • Sign digitally using LibreOffice (only for Linux – Ubuntu computers)

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If you have any questions, please contact IT Support.


 

Publicerad: 04 februari 2022