Among other things, the digital certificate It can be used to guarantee the authenticity and legal validity of a Word document. It can also help us reinforce aspects related to security. Therefore, in this article we are going to explain How to sign a Word document with a digital certificate, Step by Step.
It should be remembered that a digital certificate is an electronic document which contains identifying information about a person, entity or organization and with which they can access a certain service. In Spain, it is already very common to use these certificates to carry out all kinds of administrative procedures with the Tax Agency or the General Directorate of Traffic, for example.
Being able to sign a Word document with a digital certificate involves many things. and advantagesThese are the most notable ones:
- Guarantees the authenticity and confidentiality of the document, which is the main reason for the existence of this tool.
- It has legal validity in the European Union and many other countries.
- Ensures the integrity of the document, that is, it cannot be modified or altered after being signed.
- It represents a considerable saving of time and resources, since there is no need to print, scan or send anything by post.
- Streamlines audit and certification procedures.
All these virtues make the digital certificate a valuable resource in business, legal and administrative environments, although we can also use them without any problem for our domestic or personal procedures.
Previous requirements
Let's move on to the practical part. In order to sign a Word document with a digital certificate, we first have to meet a series of prerequisites.
The first thing of all is that we must have the digital certificate installed on our computer (we recommend reading our previous post «Where are digital certificates stored?«). Certificates can be issued by various entities, but to be used they must be valid and current. To verify that the certificate is installed on the Certificate manager We can use the keyboard shortcut Windows + R, write in the search bar certmgr.msc and press Enter.
On the other hand, we have to make sure that we have a version of Microsoft Word capable of supporting digital signatures (Word 2016 or later). It is also necessary that the document to be signed is saved in .docx format.
Signing a Word document with a digital certificate step by step
Once the preliminary checks have been carried out, let's see what is the procedure to follow to sign a Word document with a digital certificate. These are the steps to follow:
Step 1: Open the document in Microsoft Word
Simply start the Word program on your computer and search in the File menu for the document you want to digitally sign.
Step 2: Access the Digital Signature option
- In the open document, we click on the tab Archive.
- Then we select the tab Information.
- In the panel that appears on the right of the screen, we click on «Protect Document».
- Finally, we chose the option “Add a digital signature».
Step 3: Set up digital signature
After the above steps, a dialog box will appear on the screen, which tells us that a digital signature will be added to our document. Optionally, here we can add a brief written description of the objective or purpose of the digital signature of the document in a specific text field.
Step 4: Select the digital certificate
That is the main part of the digital signature process, in which we must proceed as follows: We click on Sign. If you have several certificates installed, a list with the different options will appear. All we have to do is Select the right certificate and press Accept.
Step 5: Complete the signature
Following our instructions, Microsoft Word will sign the document, then displaying a notification confirming that the digital signature has been added. After this, The document will appear marked as "read only", so any attempt to modify or alter it will automatically invalidate the signature.
Some important considerations
Signing a Word document using a digital certificate is the safest method to ensure the trust of the recipients of the document, who can be completely sure that it has not been altered after being signed.
However, to avoid surprises and errors, it is advisable keep the updated certificate. It is not a bad idea to check its expiration date from time to time. Also, to avoid having to repeat the signing process, it is important Please review all content before signing. Sometimes a final review lets us see things that are missing or unnecessary in the document.
Finally, to verify that everything has been done correctly, we can perform the testing As follows:
- We open the document which has been digitally signed.
- Let's go to the tab Archive.
- Select the option Information.
- To finish, we click on See signatures, where we can check the validity of the signature, the certificate used and other related details. It's that easy.