Signature Criteria To make assurances, the content creator must digitally sign the content by using a signature that satisfies the following criteria: The digital signature is valid. Valid refers to the status of a certificate checked against a certificate authority’s database and found to be legitimate, current, and not expired or revoked. Documents signed by a valid certificate and not altered since signing are considered valid. The certificate associated with the digital signature is current (not expired). A certificate is a digital means of proving identity and authenticity. Certificates are provided by a certification authority, and like a driver's license, can expire or be revoked. The signing person or organization, known as the publisher, is trusted. Trust is an indication of whether you trust the individual or group for whom the certificate is provided. The default setting is Inherit Trust from Issuer, which means that the certificate is trusted because the issuer, usually a certificate authority, is trusted. The certificate associated with the digital signature is provided to the signing publisher by a reputable certificate authority (CA). A certificate authority (CA) is usually a commercial organization that issues digital certificates, keeps track of who is assigned to a certificate, signs certificates to verify their validity, and tracks which certificates are revoked or expired. 2007 Microsoft Office system programs detect these criteria for you and alert you if there is a problem with the digital signature. The ability to capture digital signatures by using signature lines in Office documents makes it possible for organizations to use paperless signing processes for documents such as contracts and other agreements. In the 2007 Office release, signatures like wet-ink “feel” signatures, because of the signature line: you know where to sign a paper document, and that a similar experience is now in the software. Two advantages that digital signature lines offer are that—unlike signatures on paper—they can provide a record of exactly what was signed and they allow the signature to be verified in the future. After a document has been digitally signed, it becomes read-only to prevent modifications. Extending Digital Signatures Digital signatures offer ample opportunities for extensibility and customization with the IXMLDigitalSignature API and other interfaces. For example, you can write custom code to digitally verify the signatures written with a tablet pen. You can build conditional use of
Signature Criteria To make assurances, the content creator must digitally sign the content by using a signature that satisfies the following criteria: The digital signature is valid. Valid refers to the status of a certificate checked against a certificate authority’s database and found to be legitimate, current, and not expired or revoked. Documents signed by a valid certificate and not altered since signing are considered valid. The certificate associated with the digital signature is current (not expired). A certificate is a digital means of proving identity and authenticity. Certificates are provided by a certification authority, and like a driver's license, can expire or be revoked. The signing person or organization, known as the publisher, is trusted. Trust is an indication of whether you trust the individual or group for whom the certificate is provided. The default setting is Inherit Trust from Issuer, which means that the certificate is trusted because the issuer, usually a certificate authority, is trusted. The certificate associated with the digital signature is provided to the signing publisher by a reputable certificate authority (CA). A certificate authority (CA) is usually a commercial organization that issues digital certificates, keeps track of who is assigned to a certificate, signs certificates to verify their validity, and tracks which certificates are revoked or expired. 2007 Microsoft Office system programs detect these criteria for you and alert you if there is a problem with the digital signature. The ability to capture digital signatures by using signature lines in Office documents makes it possible for organizations to use paperless signing processes for documents such as contracts and other agreements. In the 2007 Office release, signatures “feel” like wet-ink signatures, because of the signature line: you know where to sign a paper document, and that a similar experience is now in the software. Two advantages that digital signature lines offer are that—unlike signatures on paper—they can provide a record of exactly what was signed and they allow the signature to be verified in the future. After a document has been digitally signed, it becomes read-only to prevent modifications. Extending Digital Signatures Digital signatures offer ample opportunities for extensibility and customization with the IXMLDigitalSignature API and other interfaces. For example, you can write custom code to digitally verify the signatures written with a tablet pen. You can build conditional use of
2007-officecompliancefeatures.docx