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Encrypt using Certificate

justinrjett
Registered: Dec 2 2010
Posts: 1
Answered

I was wondering what would happen if a certificate expires after you encrypt a PDF.
Do you have to decrypt the document before the certificate expires and then reencrypt with a new certificate or will Acrobat let you open the file with the old certificate anyway.
 
I use certificates for tax documents and so I don't want this to be a problem later down the road.
 
Regards.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 10.0, Macintosh
smadwin
Expert
Registered: Jul 10 2009
Posts: 40
Accepted Answer
Hi Justin,

As long as you've got access to the private key you can open the file. This piece of Acrobat functionality (opening PDF files encrypted with certificate security) does not check the status of the corresponding public key certificate like you get with digital signatures.

Steve

Steven Madwin
Software QA Engineer
Adobe Systems Incorporated
345 Park Avenue, MS-W15
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Steven [dot] Madwin [at] adobe [dot] com