by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Electronic documents, which can be sent to the recipient via email or otherwise via the Web, such as, for instance, via Instant Messenger or Skype, are the obvious choice for invoices and other documents. Ordinary word processor documents can be sent as they are, and the same is true for spreadsheets, etc.
If you don't want them to be changed, however, they need to be converted to a different format and we will come to that in a moment
This practice of using electronic documents saves paper, envelopes and postage, thus reducing the eco footprint of such documents and of you, as a company or as an individual doing business.
Any document, in fact, any file, almost, and now we come to the securing of signed documents so that they cannot be changed and manipulated, can be converted into a “portable document format” (PDF) file and with the right software a PDF file can be signed also, and this signature cannot be change or removed by the recipient.
However, the document should be signed – digitally, by use of a jpeg of the appropriate signature – before conversion really, thus taking away the need for adding a signature afterwards.
PDF documents are secure in that the contents cannot be change, altered or manipulated and thus make sending orders, invoices, etc. in a green way possible.
Every computer, basically, comes with a PDF reader as standard (though there are others and better ones than the standard one). In the case of Microsoft Windows Operating Systems this, invariably, is the Adobe (Acrobat) Reader.
There are other readers, as indicated above, better ones, available also for free, for the price of a download, and one (yes, the reader) is capable of adding a signature to any PDF file and saving this.
However, as said, ideally and best you insert the appropriate signature as a picture already prior to conversion into PDF into the document and this is much better.
Oh, yes, making the PDF...
No, you do not have to pay out lots of money for proprietary software, such as Adobe Acrobat, in order to create PDF files. There are a fair few Open Source PDF making programs available for free, again to be hand just by downloading.
As for most cases, as I indicated, there is no need for proprietary software for which you often end up paying through the nose, be this a PDF maker or an office software suite.
The PDF Creator, a virtual printer, from Source Forge does the job equally well as zero cost. While it may lack some of Adobe's sophisticated tools it does exactly what it says on the virtual box.
If you use OpenOffice.org instead of MS Office you have a build-in one click PDF maker which, however, I am afraid to say, is not as good as the PDF Creator from Source Forge. PDF Creator's compression ration is the best of all the free PDF makers I have so far seen and tested and its total cross-interoperability, from documents to pictures to printing from the Web just makes it my first choice always.
In order to create a signed document a picture, a .jpeg, of one's signature is required which is then inserted in the same way as any graphic, and most letters one receives nowadays, say, from local authorities, government departments, companies and such, even though they are not E-documents, are signed in that selfsame manner and are legal as documents. Therefore the same is true in PDF.
It does not take much to create E-documents of this kind and there is no financial outlay required. However, depending on how many of those documents you can send this way great savings can be made, which is good for you and for the Planet.
© 2010
