Digital Signature Pads and ICE Health Systems: This document is a tutorial on setting up Adobe Acrobat Pro/Reader to use the Topaz Systems Inc. Digital Signature Pads with ICE Health Systems in relation to signing forms digitally. Please note that Acrobat Pro or Acrobat Pro Extended are the paid versions of the program which allow you to actually create and edit PDF forms, and Acrobat Reader is the free version of the program which allows you to view PDF forms. Acrobat Reader will allow you to digitally sign forms only if the PDF file itself has been saved using Acrobat Pro with Usage rights for Reader enabled which is discussed later in this document. The signature pads themselves will work with Windows XP, 2003, Vista and Windows 7 and either Acrobat Pro/Acrobat Reader versions 7, 8, 9 or X, as well as Microsoft Word/Excel XP, 2003, 2007 and 2010. Note that Mac OSX is currently unsupported by the Topaz Digital Signature Pads at this time. To setup the signature pads to work with Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader, you will need to know which version of the program you currently have installed on your system. If you don t have any versions of Acrobat Pro or Reader installed, you can install the latest version of Acrobat Reader X from here (which is free) http://get.adobe.com/reader/ Note that you can also have both Adobe Acrobat Pro and Adobe Reader installed on your system at the same time. You ll just need to install the plug-in for every version that is installed. Once you have Acrobat Pro or Reader installed and know which version it is, download the driver setup file for the Topaz Digital Signature Pad from here: http://www.topazsystems.com/software/sigplusbasic.exe Once the download has completed, run the program and follow the on-screen instructions. It should first ask which version of Windows you are running. Select whichever matches your current Windows version and click OK. Next, there will be a prompt asking if you will be signing and/or viewing signatures in Microsoft Word or Excel. Choose Yes if you have Word or Excel installed, and No if you do not. The above step is optional as it does not pertain to using the signature pads with ICE Health Systems, so proceed however you like here. Skip to the next paragraph if you chose No. If you chose Yes, you will then be prompted with a list of versions of Excel or Word that you have installed on your system. Check the box next to the selection that matches the version of Word and/or Excel installed on your computer and click OK.
The setup program will now prompt you, asking if you will be signing and/or viewing signatures in Adobe Acrobat. Select Yes only if the version of Acrobat Pro/Reader installed on your system is either version 7, 8 or 9 and then check off the box next to the version of Acrobat installed on your system. If you have either Acrobat Pro X or Acrobat Reader X installed, you will need to select No at this prompt and download and run an additional program which includes the plug-in for this version of Acrobat: http://www.topazsystems.com/software/gemsignplusx.exe (run this additional setup program after completing the initial sigplusbasic.exe program). If you chose yes at the last prompt you will now see a notice message regarding how to setup Acrobat for use with the signature pads. (If you chose no because you have Acrobat X installed, then you will see this notice message when you run the setup program for the Acrobat X plug-in) Click OK and the setup program will display a progress bar as it installs some files and eventually it will prompt you again. The next prompt should be asking if you have a signature pad. Choose I have a signature pad and click OK. Now it will ask you to choose your tablet (model). Note that you can find the model number for the signature pad on the label underneath the unit itself. The model number for the Topaz Digital Signature Pads that have been provided by ICE Health Systems directly are SignatureGem LCD 1x5 (T-L462). Select the radio button next to this model (or choose that model that matches the signature pad if different from this) and click the continue button. Now you will be prompted to choose your tablet s connection type. This option should be the last one in the list - HBS USB Type (or choose whatever pertains to your particular device if using a different model than the ones provided by ICE Health Systems). Next, click OK and you will then be prompted to unplug the device if it has already been plugged in. If so, please unplug it from the computer and click next to continue. The setup program should now be complete and you can click finish. Please note that if you are using Adobe Acrobat Pro X or Acrobat Reader X you will now need to run an additional setup program to install the plug-in for the signature pads for this version of Acrobat (the link is above). Simply follow the on-screen instructions and continue this tutorial once you have completed the installation of that additional program. Note that if you are installing this additional program under Windows 7, you may be prompted by Windows at the end of the installation that the program might not have installed correctly; This is a generic compatibility warning and can be ignored by clicking on the This program installed correctly button.
Now you will need to configure Acrobat to use the Topaz Digital Signature Pads for signing documents by default. To do so, simply open your version of Acrobat and go to "Edit" -> "Preferences" -> "Security" -> "Advanced Preferences". The Verification tab should be selected automatically when the window pops up and you ll need to change the When Verifying: option to Always use the default method (overrides the document-specified method) and then change the Default Method for Verifying Signatures drop-down box to Topaz.GemSignPlus. Now click on the "Creation" tab of the Advanced Preferences popup window and set "Default Method of Signing and Encrypting Documents" to "Topaz.GemSignPlus" and then click OK to save these options, and click OK again to close the Preferences window. Now you should be able to use the signature pad to sign documents and forms. Note that if you are using a free version of Adobe Reader, then you can only sign PDF forms that have been saved with usage rights for Reader enabled using Adobe Acrobat Pro. To save a PDF form with usage rights for reader enabled, simply open any PDF file using Adobe Acrobat Pro, and navigate to Advanced -> Extend features in Adobe Reader. You will then be prompted with a message about enabling usage rights in Adobe Reader and simply need to click on the Save Now button. This step will save a new version of the document you are using with usage rights enabled. You can choose to overwrite the existing file if you prefer, and now should be able to digitally sign the document when using Acrobat Reader. Here is a video on how to enable usage rights for Adobe Reader using Acrobat Pro: http://tv.adobe.com/watch/acrobat-tips-and-tricks/enabling-usage-rights-for-adobe-reader
Please note that you might still receive the following error message when trying to sign a document using Adobe Reader and a PDF file with usage rights enabled: To fix this, you will simply need to save a copy of the PDF file from within Adobe Reader itself (by clicking File -> Save As -> PDF) and try signing this newly created file instead. I m not sure why this error occurs with Adobe Reader (it doesn t with Acrobat Pro) so hopefully it s a bug that will be fixed in a future update or is only isolated to a few number of machines. This concludes how to setup and use the Topaz Digital Signature pads with Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat Pro. Please note that when viewing PDF forms with certain web browsers, you may need to rightclick on the signature fields themselves and select Sign Document or the signature capture popup box may not appear when simply double clicking on the signature fields alone. A recent update to Adobe Acrobat Pro X has broken the PDF browser plugin when viewing/signing documents using Internet Explorer and Topaz Digital Signature Pads. For whatever reason, the signature popup window is blocked and can no longer be initiated by right-clicking on the signature box and choosing sign document. However, it is NOT and issue with Adobe Reader X, so a workaround is to simply install and use Adobe Reader until a fix is issued for this problem by Adobe themselves.
Fix for viewing and signing PDF forms from within Google Chrome: Note that if you are viewing (and signing) PDF forms from within Google Chrome you will need to ensure that the Adobe Acrobat or Adobe Reader plug-in is enabled and being used to view.pdf files by default. Google Chrome uses its own PDF viewer by default which does NOT support the Topaz digital signature pads and needs to be disabled. It is also known to have issues submitting PDF forms properly and should also be disabled for this reason. To do this, simply open the Chrome browser and type in the following under the URL address bar: about:plugins (refer to screenshot on below): You will then see a list of plug-ins installed for Google Chrome and will need to ensure that the Adobe Reader plug-in is enabled and that the Chrome PDF Viewer plug-in is disabled (note that only one can be enabled, so if you simply click enable under the Adobe Reader plug-in, Chrome should also disable the Chrome PDF Viewer plug-in at the same time). It should match the screenshot below: And that is it. You should now be able to sign documents from within Chrome using the Adobe Acrobat/Reader plug-in.