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Acrobat 9 Family of Products
Validating Signatures
Security Feature User Guide
Troubleshooting a Document Integrity Problem 122
7.5.2.2 Viewing and Comparing Changes and Versions
Document authors and recipients often need to know if a document has changed since it was signed.
Acrobat keeps track of a document’s version number, stores previous document versions in their entirety,
and enables users to compare document versions by work and page. When you open a document, the
latest version is always displayed whether or not it is the signed version. Document recipients should
always remember the following:
Every time a document is signed, the entire document at the point of signing is stored in the PDF as an
incrementally numbered version.
A signature signs a document at a specific point in time; that is, signature X signs version X and
signature Y signs version Y. You can view exactly what the document looked like at that point in time
using
View Signed Version
.
For details, see the following:
Chapter 8, “Document Integrity and Preview Mode”
.
“Viewing a List of Post-Signing Modifications” on page 122
.
“Comparing a Signed Version to the Current Version” on page 123
.
7.5.2.3 Viewing a List of Post-Signing Modifications
Because it is possible to change a document without changing its appearance, the list of post-signing
modifications is often a superset of what is visually displayed when comparing documents using
Document Compare. Therefore, a thorough analysis of a signed document’s integrity includes viewing the
document modifications list.
To view a list of post-signing modifications, open the Signature pane and view the change history. All
changes are listed in chronological order.
Note that you can also do the following to get a more condensed list:
1. Right click on a signature and choose
Show Signature Properties
.
2. Choose the Document tab.
3. Choose
Compute Modifications List
. The list is capable of showing the following:
Fields (with field names) that have been created, modified, deleted, or filled in.
Annotations (comments) that have been created, modified or deleted.
Pages that were created, modified or deleted.
Spawned pages, deleted spawned pages, and modified spawned pages.
Attachments that have been added, deleted, or modified.
Miscellaneous: Some changes which occur in memory or cannot be explicitly listed are labelled
miscellaneous.