An electronic digital signature (electronic signature) is an attribute of an electronic document that allows you to determine the absence of distortion of information in such a document and check whether the signature belongs to the owner of the electronic signature key certificate. Not everyone knows that the OpenOffice software package has the ability to digitally sign electronic documents.
Instructions
Step 1
Obtain or create a personal digital certificate and install it on your computer. Such a certificate is a password-protected file. This file stores information about the owner's name, his email address, encryption key, the name of the organization that provided the certificate, as well as the expiration date of the certificate. To obtain a digital certificate, contact an organization that does it on a commercial basis, or a non-profit organization, for example, CACert (the latter issues certificates for free).
Step 2
Visit the CACert website (https://www.cacert.org/) and register on it. When registering, enter your name, email address, password, and other personal data. After filling in all the required fields, receive a URL to your e-mail address to confirm your desire to receive a certificate. To confirm, in the window that opens, click on the appropriate button. This will generate a certificate and display a link by which the certificate will be installed on your computer
Step 3
Follow the link indicating the installation of the certificate. Go through the menu system "Tools - Options - Advanced - View Certificates". You will see your digital certificate signed by the CACert server. Save the certificate to a separate file by clicking the "Backup" button. Then double-click on the saved file to start the procedure for installing the certificate on your computer.
Step 4
To create a so-called self-signed certificate, use the free Selfcert program. In the program window, fill in the fields with personal data, including name and email address. Come up with a password, and then save the certificate as a file on any disk.
Step 5
To view the installed digital signature certificates, run the certmgr.msc utility from a Windows command prompt. In the Personal folder, you will see the installed digital certificates.
Step 6
To digitally sign an OpenOffice document, open the document. From the File - Digital Signatures menu, select your certificate and click OK. The document has been signed. At the same time, an image (icon) will appear in the lower bar of OpenOffice. Double-clicking on the icon will open a window showing the certificate of the author of the document.
