Acrobat 9 Family of Products
Security Feature User Guide
4.2.2 Customizing Signature Appearances
The signing process allows you to select from a list of signature appearances. Acrobat provides a default
appearance, but you can create one or more custom appearances and store them for later use. An
appearance consists of three main components, and each can be separately customized:
Signature: The text or graphic that identifies the signer on the left hand side of the appearance.
Watermark or background: A background image or text that is automatically applied to each
signature. By default, this is the Adobe PDF logo.
Signature text and details: Signature data that the signer want to include in the appearance.
4.2.2.1 Creating a Custom Signature
Acrobat creates a default signature from the signer's name. However, a signature can be any graphic such
an scanned signatures, text, or a combination of the two
watermark should be visible in the underlying layer.
To create a signature:
1. Create a graphic from your scanned signature or from some other image.
2. Make the background transparent if desired.
3. Save the file to any location.
4.2.2.2 Creating a Custom Watermark or Background
A watermark is a partially transparent graphic or logo that appears "behind" a signature. By default, the
watermark is the Adobe PDF logo. Line (vector) art that is simple and unobtrusive often works best.
1. Import a logo or create a new one in a program such as Adobe Illustrator.
2. Set a low transparency level and flatten the transparency:
1. Select all and group the objects if there is more than one.
2. Choose Window > Transparency and slide the transparency slider to some low value such as 20%.
3. Choose Object > Flatten Transparency. Leaving the Raster/Vector balance at 100%.
Figure 40 Custom signature appearance
Tip:
To learn how to control appearances programmatically, developers should refer to
Signature
Appearances.
Authoring Signable Documents
Customizing Signature Appearances
(Figure
40). Make the background transparent if
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