Protecting inserted signatures

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HI

We have several documents that are distributed outside the organisation and have pictures of senior managers signatures inserted.

Without creating a form and protecting it is there any way we can prevent the signatures being copied off the documents?

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HI

We have several documents that are distributed outside the organisation and have pictures of senior managers signatures inserted.

Without creating a form and protecting it is there any way we can prevent the signatures being copied off the documents?

Given that anyone could just scan or photograph the document and copy the image from that I don’t know if there is any real benefit from trying to protect the signatures in that way.

Why not ask them to produce a ‘fake’ signature for publication, or get Senior Manager A to ‘sign’ as Senior Manager B and so on…

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We have several documents that are distributed outside the organisation and have pictures of senior managers signatures inserted.

Without creating a form and protecting it is there any way we can prevent the signatures being copied off the documents?

Not really. If you place the image behind text or another (transparent) image, it is harder to select and copy, but not impossible. (You also could slice the image and insert multiple pieces positioned adjacent to one another. But this probably would create user support issues when one of them moves or goes missing.)

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Using print screen any thing on a pc monitor can be copied

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Watermark the image that makes up the signature.
Use a shadowed font about 1/2 the height of the actual signature and just dark enough to see it clearly about 50% transparency works in most cases.
Use verbiage similar to: “Digital Signature Do Not Copy”

Not fool-proof, but it will make it very difficult to copy, especially if the signature has a small shadow too.

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Watermark the image that makes up the signature.
Use a shadowed font about 1/2 the height of the actual signature and just dark enough to see it clearly about 50% transparency works in most cases.
Use verbiage similar to: “Digital Signature Do Not Copy”

Not fool-proof, but it will make it very difficult to copy, especially if the signature has a small shadow too.

Thanks Russ
I experimented with this in that I put the signature in as a watermark, with layout = In front of text, and moved it to the appropriate position. Then protected the document allowing everyone to edit the parts of the letter that required macro dialogue box input.
Works great, however the letter I was experimenting with has variable text and I cannot get the “watermark” to move with the text.

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The message here is that ANYTHING that can be read can be copied.

Ask this question: if you sent a letter which someone has signed to the recipients outside your organisation, would you worry or panic about it?

Let’s be sensible: if this document does not require a real signature to be appended and you are concerned about the issue, use a pseudo-signature using Freestyle script or Brush Scrip font.

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