# Electronic Signing & Sealing



## cwlodyka (May 6, 2011)

How does one go about signing and sealing a drawing electronically? I understand the simplest parts of inserting a seal into a CAD drawing etc, what about signatures? Aren't there control regulations on signatures? How would one go about 'signing' a drawing electronically, are there programs out there for this?


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## knight1fox3 (May 6, 2011)

cwlodyka said:


> How does one go about signing and sealing a drawing electronically? I understand the simplest parts of inserting a seal into a CAD drawing etc, what about signatures? Aren't there control regulations on signatures? How would one go about 'signing' a drawing electronically, are there programs out there for this?


The company I work for has purchased a number Adobe Digital Signatures for various employees. These are mostly used for signing compliance documents and/or test procedures in PDF. When ordering your engineering seal stamp, you can also usually get a digital seal as well (*.jpg or *.bmp) that can be inserted in PDFs or CAD drawings. Thereby eliminating the need to go through and stamp multiple pages. A digital seal _could_ be combined with that engineer's signature but wouldn't really be practical because to officially seal a design, one must sign and date their seal.


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## momech (May 6, 2011)

I asked this same question a little while back, but didn't get a really good answer. http://engineerboards.com/index.php?showtopic=15293&amp;hl=


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## MA_PE (May 6, 2011)

knight1fox3 said:


> cwlodyka said:
> 
> 
> > How does one go about signing and sealing a drawing electronically? I understand the simplest parts of inserting a seal into a CAD drawing etc, what about signatures? Aren't there control regulations on signatures? How would one go about 'signing' a drawing electronically, are there programs out there for this?
> ...


Here we have the engineer stamp, sign, and date a hardcopy. Then we scan it and insert it into the dawing file. We do not send out the cad file with the attached stamp image. We print to a PDF and issue that.

Each state will have rules about acceptable stamping/sealing practices. Check ther before doing anything. They may not accept electronic stamps.


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## Exception Collection (May 20, 2011)

cwlodyka said:


> How does one go about signing and sealing a drawing electronically? I understand the simplest parts of inserting a seal into a CAD drawing etc, what about signatures? Aren't there control regulations on signatures? How would one go about 'signing' a drawing electronically, are there programs out there for this?


Depending on the state, they may accept a file with an electronic PGP-style signature. Basically, it's a multi-factor encryption, with two keys used - the master key that originally encrypts it, which is only in the hands of the engineer, and the public key, which others can use to decrypt it.

I know some jurisdictions in Oregon accept them.


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