2024 GUIDE: Digitally Sign PDF With Certificate (DSC)

Signing a PDF may be one thing. But adding a digital signature certificate? Here's how to go the extra mile.

• How to add it
• When do you need it?
• Electronic signature? Digital signature? What’s the difference?
• And how do they work

How to Digitally Sign a PDF with a Certificate

You can digitally sign a PDF with a certificate through SignHouse, Word, and Adobe Acrobat. All are free, though SignHouse is online and the fastest.

1. Use an online tool

Signing with SignHouse is 100% free and it does the job 8x faster and 12x more efficiently.

But without presenting it too much, let’s focus on how to do it:

1. Use the upload box below — drag and drop your PDF
2. In the upper left corner, feel free to edit the signees: you can keep/remove yourself and then add other signees(if you need signature with digital certificates from others)
3. Place the signatureblocks on the document
4. Click Review and Finish → Make sure everything is ok
5. Scroll down → click Send this document

And voila! You’re done.

If you’re the only signee, you will be able to download the very same document, but with a proper, 100% secure and legally-binding eSignature added.

• If you’ve sent this to other signees, you’ll be updated as they make progress.
• And then get the final document with all the signatures.

All signatures created with SignHouse do come with a digital signature certificate, which can be read by any software that allows it — or any authority that requires.

Therefore, it’s 100% legally binding.

2. Use Adobe Acrobat

Naturally, you’ll need Adobe Acrobat for this.

1. Open your PDF document
2. Go to Tools → Forms and Certificates
3. Click “Open”, under “Certificates”
4. Select “Digitally Sign” → Either select a signature or click Configure New Digital ID.
5. When you’re done, click Sign → Apply the signature

3. Use Microsoft Word

The short of it is this: Microsoft Word doesn’t have a native way to add a signature with a digital signature certificate.

• The Fix: With SignHouse, you can add a signature in a Word document.‍
• The Reason:Microsoft mentions here the digital certificate, but doesn’t shed any more light as to how to generate one within Microsoft Word.

For the time being, we recommend sticking to a proper eSignature software tool.

Electronic signature? Digital signature? What’s the difference?

Here’s the thing, however: we’ve talked about both electronic and digital signatures, but there’s a slight difference between the two.

To tell the difference, here’s this table on electronic signatures vs digital signatures: