What is a digital ID?

A Digital ID is like your passport or ID card that can prove who you are and contains important information, such as name, email address and expiration date. A Digital ID consists of the public key used to encrypt documents and the private key used to decrypt data and apply your digital signature when signing. The public key is in a certificate which can be transferred and used to encrypt documents to prevent unauthorized access. Once you have your own Digital IDs, you can distribute the certificate to those who want to validate your digital signature or identity. Make sure you store your private key in a safe place to prevent others from using it to decrypt your information.

You can have several Digital IDs for different purposes, e.g. one for opening marketing documents and the other for research materials. All your Digital IDs are stored in Manage Digital Identities > Security Settings dialog box as a list of Digital IDs.


Digital IDs contain two keys: the private key and the public key. You use the private key (A) to unlock data and the puiblic key (B) to encrypt data.

Create a self-signed digital ID

You may wonder how you can get a certificate. There are two ways to get one: create a self-signed digital ID or get one from a third-party provider. Once you create a self-signed digital ID, it will be automatically added to the list of digital identities in Security Settings dialog box under Manage Digital Identities.

  1. In Right PDF Editor, do any of the following:

    • Choose Security > Sign/Certify > Sign Document. Click-drag to mark a rectangle area anywhere on the page. In the Sign Document dialog box, click Add….

    • Choose Security > Sign/Certify > Certify Document. Click-drag to mark a rectangle area anywhere on the page. In the Certify Document dialog box, click Add….

    • Choose Security > Digital IDs and Certificates > Manage Digital Identities. In the left panel of the Security Settings dialog box, click Digital IDs and click Add ID….

  1. In the Add Digital ID dialog box, select Create a Self-Signed Digital ID and then click Next.

  2. Determine where to store your self-signed Digital ID and then click Next:

    • New Digital ID File (PKCS#12 Format). Select this to store the digital ID in a new file with password protection. The digital IDF file has the extension .pfx in Windows and .p12 in Mac OS. Either file format is supported by most security applications, including major web browsers.

    • Windows Certificate Store. Store the Digital ID in the Windows Certificate Store where it will also be available to other Windows applications. The Digital ID will be protected by your Windows login.

  1. In the Create a Self-Signed Digital ID dialog box, type a name, email address, and other personal information for your digital ID. The name you specify will appear in the Signatures panel and also in the Signature field when you certify or sign a document. The options vary depending on the type of digital ID you choose.

  2. From the Use digital ID for menu, specify if you want to use the digital ID for signing digital signatures, data encryption, or both.

  3. If you chose New Digital ID File at step 3, type a password for the digital ID file with a minimum of 6 characters, and then click OK.

  4. Choose a location to save your digital ID, give it a file name, and then click Save to finish. The newly-created digital ID is automatically added to the list of digital identities. You can further click Export Certificate… to export a selected digital ID and then send your certificate file out to contacts who need to use it to validate your signature or encrypt documents with certificate-based security.

Note: make sure you always have a backup copy of your digital ID file. You cannot use the profile to add signatures if you don’t have the correct password, or your digital ID file is damaged or lost.

Add a digital ID

You can choose to add an already existing digital ID from a file or create a self-signed digital ID that will be automatically added to your list of digital IDs.

  1. In Right PDF Editor, choose Security > Digital IDs and Certificates > Manage Digital Identities.

  2. In the Security Settings dialog box, select Digital IDs from the panel to the left and click on Add ID….

  3. In the Add Digital ID dialog box, select Find an existing Digital ID from and then choose either A file or A device connected to this computer.

  4. Click Next and follow the instructions to add Digital IDs.

Remove your digital ID

You can simply delete a digital ID in the Security Settings dialog box. When you delete a digital ID, you delete the actual PKCS #12 file (*.pfx or *.p12) that contains both the public key and the private key. However, the exported certificate remains unaffected.

  1. In Right PDF Editor, choose Security > Digital IDs and Certificates > Manage Digital Identities.

  2. In the Security Settings dialog box, select Digital IDs from panel to the left and select the ID you want to remove from the list. Click Remove ID.

  3. At the prompt, click OK to confirm you want to permanently remove the select digital ID.

Note: you can delete only self-signed IDs you created in Right PDF Editor. The digital IDs obtained from other providers cannot be deleted.

Export a digital ID

  1. In Right PDF Editor, choose Security > Digital IDs and Certificates > Manage Digital Identities.

  2. In the Security Settings dialog box, select a digital ID from the list and click Export Certificate….

  3. In the Export Data dialog box, select an export option and then click Next:

    • Email the data to someone. Select to send the Personal X.509 Certification File exported from the selected Digital ID to your email address. The certification file attached contains a copy of a certificate that you can use to verify signature and encrypt documents for the selected digital ID.

    • Save the data to a file. Select to save the exported certificate to a specified location as a PKCS #7 Certificate File (*.p7b).

  1. Your options vary depending on the export option you choose:

    • If you choose to email the exported certificate, in the Email Certificate dialog box, type your email address and click

    • If you choose to Save the data to a file, name the Certificate file, specify a location, and then click

Note: the exported Certificates are usually used for verifying signatures and encrypting documents to limit access to the person who has the corresponding private key (the digital ID).

Note: you can click Certificate Details… to view the certificate attributes of each digital ID.

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