Sign documents without entering a signature password?

Question

On the PC version of Acrobat you can sign documents very easily without entering in a password every time you want to sign a document.  On the mac version it appears that you have to enter a pwd every single time you sign a document... this is very frustrating when signing 20-30 docs at a time.  Is there a way to disable the pwd requirement in Acrobat X for Mac?

Answer 1

Hi sojourner166,
For the sake of discussion lets limit how a digital ID is access to either directly from a file or through the operating system (OS). Both the file & the OS methods allow the user to access the private key (that's the part that is password protected) without having to enter the password each time.
On Windows the OS loads the digital ID into the Windows Certificate Store an on the Mac OS it uses Keychain Access. On Windows when you import a digital ID, if you don't select High Assurance (which is off by default) the OS assumes that if you could log in using your password that's good enough and will allow access to the private key without prompting you for the password. On the Mac, Keychain Access has UI which lets you control whether you need to confirm the password or not.
When you are signing with a digital ID in either of the OS based systems Acrobat say to the OS "give me access to the private key so I can do a signature operation". The OS then checks the setting and either grants access without further ado, or, it says to Acrobat "before I'll give you access to the private key you've got to tell me the password". Acrobat in turn puts up a dialog asking the user for the password. You type it in, hit the Sign button and Acrobat says to the OS, "okay here you go, now can I get access to the private key so I can finish this signing operation?". The OS checks the password that Acrobat sent along and if it's correct grants access to the private key, and if it's not correct returns an error code, which causes the signing operation to abort.
If the digital ID is residing in a file then the OS sits on the sideline and Acrobat handles the password work itself. If you are using a digital ID that resides in a file you can set the password timeout option through the Acrobat UI. In the Security Setting dialog expand Digital IDs in the tree view and then select Digital ID Files. From there you can click on the Password Timeout button and adjust how often you want to be prompted for a password to access the private key.
Here's a picture of what you are looking for:
If you are using a digital ID listed under Keychain Digital IDs let me know and I'll work up those steps for you.
Hope this helps,
Steve