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Re: Sending signed PDFs

for

From: Duff Johnson
Date: Jul 13, 2016 7:19AM

> I was looking for an FMS or an ECMS that our small company could use, but
> non had any kind of accessibility rating or looked to be able to transfer
> legal documents easily into a web form.
> Does anyone have any systems that are accessible to use and provide
> documents accessibly along with the e-sign functionality?

Well, PDF documents may be made accessible, as we know.

Accessible PDF documents may contain a signature field, that is, a means of applying a digital signature to the PDF. Most signature fields provide for some sort of visual appearance for the signature as well.

The signing process happens in PDF software that has as one of its features applying digital signatures to PDF documents. It's not my place to list such software, but most stand-alone PDF viewers can do it.

> I have a current problem in that I need to give government documents (like
> W4s and I9s) to our employees and get their signature, but I don't really
> know how to legally modify the given W4 so it can accept signatures.

You could add a digital signature field to the W4 form PDF. Nothing changes (visually) until the document is signed, and then its only a signature, so I can't see any problem.

That said, your employees probably don't have their own IDs with which to securely sign the W4. This is something an employer can provide, but it may be out-of-scope, depending.

> I was also thinking I should look into any APIs or standards that describe
> how to legally gather an electronic signature. Does anyone know of any such
> thing? Is it just the checkbox saying that says: "By checking this box you
> are signing this document with your signature"?

It's not really an accessibility issue, so probably shouldn't be discussed here…

Duff.


> On Tue, Jul 12, 2016 at 10:35 AM, Duff Johnson < <EMAIL REMOVED> >
> wrote:
>
>>> Our central office has a habit of sending out signed memos generated in
>> Word, signed, scanned as PDF, and emailed or posted. What is best practice
>> for accessibility? Should they run make accessible on the scan to OCR and
>> auto tag the PDF? Or have two PDF versions, one not signed but generated
>> from Word with tags? Or is there a better option?
>>
>> "Best practice" would be to use an electronic document from end-to-end. In
>> other words, don't print-to-sign - sign the original electronic document
>> instead.
>>
>> This approach has numerous benefits from an enterprise content management
>> (ECM) perspective, but from an accessibility point of view it also allows
>> the author/agency to create the document properly (with respect to
>> accessibility) up-front, and evades the cost, hassle, file-size and
>> marginal (if at all) accessibility of the "print-sign-scan-OCR" model.
>>
>> There's some investment (certificate, capable PDF software, IT support,
>> learning how to sign electronically), but there are so many benefits it
>> behooves any central office to examine the option of digital signatures for
>> their PDF documents.
>>
>> Duff.
>> >> >> >> >>
> > > >