Require digital signatures for specific recipients

Apply stronger signing requirements only where they matter. Require digital signatures for specific recipients while keeping the rest of the agreement flexible and easy to send.

After Digital Signatures are enabled for an account or group, senders can require specific recipients to sign using a digital signature during agreement creation. This lets you apply stricter signing requirements only where they are needed, without forcing all recipients on an agreement to use digital signatures.

Adobe Acrobat Sign automatically enforces this requirement. An agreement cannot be sent unless each required recipient has at least one required digital signature field. When necessary, Acrobat Sign adds the field to prevent configuration errors.

Configuration

Availability

This functionality is automatically enabled when at least one Digital Signature is enabled for the account/group.

Configuration scope

• Acrobat Standard and Acrobat Pro: Not Supported
• Acrobat Sign Solutions: Supported
• Acrobat Sign for Government: Supported

How this capability works

As an administrator, your role is to enable Digital Signatures.
As a sender, their role is to require a digital signature for selected recipients.

There is no separate administrative control for this requirement. Once Digital Signatures are enabled, the option to require a digital signature is always available to senders.

In practice:

• Admins enable Digital Signatures at the account or group level.
• Senders decide which recipients must sign digitally.
• Acrobat Sign enforces the requirement before the agreement is sent.

Where senders require digital signatures

Senders apply this requirement during agreement creation.

From the Request Signatures process, senders open Recipient settings and select Require recipient to apply a Digital Signature for the appropriate recipients.

This requirement applies only to the selected recipient. Other recipients on the same agreement can continue to sign using standard electronic signatures.

Identity Check behavior when digital signatures are required

Identity Check options are exposed only when they are supported by both administrative policy and signing method.

• If Identity Check is enabled at the admin level and Cloud Signatures are enabled, Identity Check options appear after a sender requires a digital signature for a recipient.
• Available options include email matching and name matching.
• Options disabled by policy are hidden.

If only Download and Sign with Acrobat is enabled:

• Digital signature requirements are available.
• Identity Check options are not shown.

Identity Check is not supported in legacy send experiences.

What happens during authoring

When a sender requires a digital signature for a recipient, Acrobat Sign adjusts the authoring experience and enforces the requirement before sending.

• The Digital Signature field becomes the default signature field for that recipient.
• Electronic signature fields remain available if needed.
• At least one required digital signature field must be assigned to the recipient.

If this requirement is not met, Acrobat Sign blocks sending until it is resolved.

This validation applies to both modern and classic authoring experiences.

What happens if authoring is skipped

If a sender sends an agreement without opening authoring:

• Acrobat Sign automatically adds a required digital signature field for each enforced recipient.
• The field is placed at the end of the document using the default size and placement.

This ensures agreements are not sent without the required digital signature fields.

Mixed recipient scenarios

Agreements can include a mix of recipients:

• Some recipients may be required to sign digitally.
• Others may sign using standard electronic signatures.

Acrobat Sign enforces digital signature requirements only for the recipients selected by the sender.

When text tags are used:

• Existing digital signature fields are made required when enforcement applies.
• Electronic signature fields remain unchanged.
• Additional digital signature fields are added only when required fields are missing.

After the agreement is sent

Digital signature requirements are set during agreement creation.

After an agreement is sent, the required signing method for recipients cannot be changed. To modify signing requirements, a new agreement must be created.

Limitations to be aware of

• This capability is available only in the modern Request Signatures experience.
• Identity Check with digital signatures is not supported in legacy send experiences.
• Recipient groups do not support Identity Check configuration.
• No additional roles or permissions are introduced.