InfoPath Dev

Hello All. I would lke to enable digital signatures on my form, but the button is grayed out. I have the service pack installed, so I am not sure what the problem is. Anyoone have any ideas?

~If you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to fix it?~

Did you create the data source using InfoPath or did you start from a pre-existing schema?

If the latter, that is probably the issue. You will need to update your schema to allow signatures. The easiest way to do this is to create a new blank form and add the signatures you want, and then copy that portion of the schema over to your exisitng schema.

There might be a little more to it than that... its been ages since I've tried this. I would suggest 2 things first:

1. Back up your template before attempting this.
2. Create a new form from the same schema, and practice on that new form first until you feel like you know what you are doing.


Either way, you'll need to go to Tools | Form Options | Digital Signatures and select Enable Digital Signatures for them to work.

Greg Collins [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPath Dev

Just in case it helps anyone else with this problem, Greg's tips got me on the right path, and I'll explain the change below.

InfoPath apparently expects an element with a certain namespace specified somewhere in the schema, or it will gray out the option to sign forms. It reminds me of what you have to put in your schema if you want to have a rich text field (similar to below, only with a different namespace). This is what I ended up adding:

<xs:element name="signatures1">
<xs:complexType>
<xs:sequence>
<xs:any minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="unbounded" namespace="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#" processContents="lax"/>
</xs:any>
</xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType>
</xs:element>

Then, ref in this element somehwere in your schema.

<xs:element ref="signatures1"/>

The signatures node cannot be optional (i.e. don't set minOccurs).

It kind of makes sense that it's greyed out if you've built the form based on a schema. InfoPath doesn't let itself change the schema in this mode, so it can't add this node it needs to store signatures in.

Thanks for the tip, Greg -- I copied this out of a blank form with signatures added like you said.