Making a backup of your Digital ID

You should always make a backup copy of each Digital ID that you create so that if the original file saved in the Acrobat folder (Acrobat 6.0 on the Mac) ever becomes corrupted, you can use the backup to both sign documents and verify other people’s signatures. To make a backup of your Digital ID, click the Export button in the Digital ID File Settings dialog box for your Digital ID. Then in the Data Exchange File - Export Options dialog box, select the Save the Data to a File radio button in the Export Options area. Click the Next button to open the Export Data As dialog box, select the folder in the Save In drop-down list (preferably on another hard drive, if you have more than one drive on your system or are connected to a network), and click the Save button. Acrobat then displays Certificate Security - Alert dialog box, indicating in which folder you’ve successfully backed up your Digital ID file.

Modifying the user settings in a profile

You can modify the user settings in your Digital ID at any time. You might, for instance, want to associate a graphic with your digital signature (especially one that is actually a picture of your handwritten signature). You also might need to change the password for a profile or want to back up the profile file or change the password timeout options.
Before you can change any settings for your profile, you need to take these steps:

1. 1. Open your Digital ID file by choosing Manage Digital IDs➪My Digital ID Files➪Select My Digital ID File. The Select My Digital ID File dialog box opens.
2. Select the filename of your user Digital ID in the Digital ID File dropdown list, enter your password in User Password text box, and click the OK button. Acrobat automatically opens your Digital ID file.
3. Choose Manage Digital IDs➪My Digital ID Files➪My Digital ID File Settings to open your Digital ID File Settings dialog box.

Setting up your digital ID profile

The first step to be able to use Certificate Security for digitally signing PDF documents is to set up your Digital ID. Your Digital ID contains your password, along with basic information about your role. You can set up multiple profiles for yourself if you digitally sign documents in different roles.
To create a new user profile, follow these steps:

1. Choose Advanced➪Manage Digital IDs➪My Digital ID Files➪Select My Digital ID File. The Select My Digital ID dialog box opens.
2. Click the New Digital ID File button. The Create Self-Signed Digital ID dialog box appears, as shown in Figure.
3. Edit the Name, Organization Unit, Organization Name, E-mail Address, and Country/Region text boxes, if necessary (only the Name text box must be filled in), in the Digital ID Details section of the dialog box. Note the profile name that appears in the Name text box is the name that appears in the Signatures palette in Acrobat 6 and is used in the naming of the Self-Signed Digital ID filename. If you select the Enable Unicode Support check box, Acrobat displays additional text boxes for entering Unicode values for extended characters next to the ASCII versions you just entered.
4. Select an RSA algorithm (either 1024-bit or 2048-bit) in the Key Algorithm drop-down list, and then select a purpose for your Digital ID in the Use Digital ID For drop-down list. Note that 2048-bit offers more security, but 1024-bit is more compatible with current encryption technologies. Your choices are Digital Signatures, Data Encryption, or the default Digital Signatures and Data Encryption.
5. Click in the Enter a Password text box and enter a password of six characters or more.
6. Press Tab to jump to the Confirm Password text box and then reenter the password.
7. Click the Create button to open the New Self-Sign Digital ID File dialog box. By default, Acrobat names the new profile file by combining the profile name with the .pfx file extension in the Security folder within the Acrobat 6.0 folder in Windows, and the Acrobat 6.0 folder on the Macintosh. If you wish, edit the filename before clicking the Save button to save the new profile and close the Create Self-Signed Digital ID dialog box.