There’s another nice thing that Adobe’s Fill & Sign can do to make your notary forms look better. I occasionally receive pre-printed Notary forms with the wrong State and/or County pre-printed on them. Rather than do a messy-looking cross-out and initials with the correct state/county following, I use Fill & Sign to remove the wrong state and/or county. Click on the big round black dot to change the color of the fill & sign font from black to clear. Then select the underline to place clear lines over the wrong state or county. 4-5 of them stacked on top of each other are enough to erase the incorrect wording. Then reselect black for the text color, type the desired text into the block, then move it into the correct position. Place the text box elsewhere to be filled in then move it into position or it will undo some of the text erasure you just did Done properly you’d never know the wrong state or county was there. Takes me less than a minute which when I have enough time before the signing is no big deal. It sure looks better if you’re a little OCD or care how your documents look as I do.
Good tips! I use Adobe Fill and Sign tools regularly. I’ll keep your notes on my desk.
An ACK or Jurat is “not” considered a lender document. It is normally a “State” mandated document and as long as the state approved “verbiage” is correct, you will never have an issue with a Lender or Escrow Company.
i do my own acknowledgements and jurats this way. I will cross through the one on the document and state “see attached”. in CA we have required language on each ack and jurat that a lot of title companies do not include anyway.
I called NNA and this is acceptable, as is a pre-inked stamp. Also, there is an online converter to unlock the pdf. It’s called Unlock PDF. online2pdf.com/remove-pdf-restrictions
Hi Jerry. I just read this post. What an excellent idea! My question is this: how do you get the type to go above the line so it looks uniform all throughout the document? It seems like I have to place the cursor at exactly the right spot on the line or else it is too far up from the line or it’s below the line. Any tips? Thank you.
Point… be careful of using online pdf unlock sites. Some of them retain copies of documents. There are desktop tools that do the same thing.
Everything in my business that can be digital is. I do not keep paper where the law does not demand I do. I keep blank, read only pdf templates for office use. My partner has the habit of overwriting forms so I restricted that ability and it forces her to “save as”
Our clientele has expressed their approval of the professionalism of the forms I use. Names, dates, verbiage is all typed in & legible.
Acrobat Pro has a “Prepare Form” feature (not sure if Reader does). It scans & detects form fields then makes them fillable. It almost always recognizes fields correctly for me. When it fails I simply create the fields myself. Again… I don’t think Acrobat Reader has this feature.
Acrobat Pro cost. Adobe has switched to a subscription model like so many other companies. It was a few hundred for a perpetual license when I purchased it. I don’t think you can get that license anymore.
Adobe does not have the market cornered on PDF tools. A number of others provide tools that offer the same and better features.
My prefered software is made by FoxIt. It is my default PDF utility. I typically use Acrobat if FoxIt fails. That’s a rare thing. Foxit PhantomPDF is 129.99 for standard (what most would need) & 179.99 for the business edition. They also have a free pdf reader.
Their software is usually less resource intensive than Adobe product.
There is also CutePDF, Nitro PDF, PDF Forge, PDF Expert (Mac) etc. etc.
Find what works for you & your budget.
You can check sites like stacksocial etc for huge discounts on software and services that can be of use to your business.
I use Fill & Sign as much as possible. I have found that some title companies (Amrock for one) will not allow you to fill in . Soo Sad.
Premiernotary, once you have the text created, you can place your cursor on the border ot the text block and while holding the mouse click button down, drag the text to wherever you want it.
de1c1na you can use Fill & Sign to your heart’s content in the notary Ack and Jurat forms, they are your forms. Even if they have blocked Fill & Sign, you can still use a good unlocking site like https://online2pdf.com/ (who does NOT save copies of the documents) to complete the notary forms. I regularly do that for neatness, speed, and accuracy reasons. They cannot block your ability to use a tool like that in the notary forms.
Metzger_nsa the notary certificates are ours, not theirs. I have done 500+ signings using fill & sign in my notary forms without any complaints from the 15-20 signing companies I work with including First American, Fidelity National Title Group, etc.
https://online2pdf.com/ and other such sites say they don’t save the files after the processing is done. But I don’t have the resources to verify if this is true or not, so I won’t use such sites for documents where confidentiality is an issue.
If you can’t trust what a company like that says without your ability to independently verify it that’s your decision. If they say they don’t, that’s good enough for me… especially since it is such an invaluable tool that helps me to more accurately, more quickly, and more neatly complete my documents.
Metzger_nsa: I think you are blowing this way out of proportion. Any title/lender worried about ‘somebody’ making changes could simply run a pdf compare program which would highlight any changes made to the documents.
The title company will be receiving paper back. They can’t run a pdf compare between the unsigned pdf on their computer and a stack of paper.
Thanks so much for passing this tip on to us! I just used it today and I’m so grateful that I saw this on Notary Cafe.
Kimberly
I disagree. They scan those documents back into the system and many pages have bar codes on the bottom. You are messing with fire. As a former contract and risk manager for a large corporation, I had subcontractors change my agreements via pdf and they thought I wouldn’t catch them. Well I did and it is illegal to change digitally contracts I had sent out. There is a proper way to change agreements and you have crossed the line. Now it’s on the net for everyone to read. Good luck with that.
I do not advocate making digital changes to PDFs before printing them, unless you have permission. As for those changes being illegal, it depends on what you’re changing. The notary section of the Vermont Secretary of State’s office have made it clear to me that the content of notary certificates is my responsibility. It is my duty to correct or replace those certificates as necessary to comply with Vermont law.
It’s hard for me to imagine how a scan of a paper copy could be compared to the digital original. I would expect the most the software could do would be to guide the human user to areas that might have been changed. Most of those would turn out to be things like signatures, initials, wrinkles, etc., but maybe changes to the typed wording could be found, if the human user was diligent enough.
It certainly wouldn’t be like comparing two digital files that had never visited the world of paper; for those files, the answer is yes, they’re identical, or no, they’re not.
Hello again Ashton,
Key word is Vermont Laws. What type of documents are you referencing when you make these changes?
I am in WA State and a standard refi pkg will involve 3 to 5 states all engaging in different state laws for notaries. We do not have universal notary laws in the US. In my notary log I note all states involved in transactions and dba’s.
If you digitally change documents that do not abide by other states laws because you find it inconvenient to make pen/ink change, not grounds for digital change.
Yes, I was diligent in my previous occupation and you would be caught…only a matter of time. Is your reputation worth the risk?
Prior to become Notary, my standards have always been set higher to be transparent, honest and to not perform any type of task that would be considered possibly or illegal. Treat others the way I would want be treated. No politics, laws, etc…just good ethics. In my business, I have developed long term relationships based on trust and respect. Not from VT but have been exposed to universal laws and experiences of the US and don’t live in a bubble.
You claimed it would be illegal in every situation for a notary to change a pdf before printing it and getting it signed (unless the notary got permission first), right?
If that’s what you’re saying, then I disagree. The notary certificates are almost always in the pdf that comes from the client. In my state, the notary has the authority and duty to change these certificates to make them correct. It doesn’t matter where the certificate was written, where it will be recorded, where the signer lives, where the bank is located. Every time a signer appears before a Vermont notary and a certificate is completed and signed by a Vermont notary, the notary must make sure the certificate complies with Vermont law, which may mean changing the certificate.
Unless I get permission, I don’t change the certificates in the pdf before I print them. Either I print them and change them with a pen, or I strike them out and attach a loose certificate. That’s my method. But if some other Vermont notary decided to change the certificates in the pdf, it wouldn’t be illegal.