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Practice Tip: <B>Electronic & Digital Signatures in Word</b>

By William Robertson

Have you ever had to print out a document just because you had to sign it before faxing it? Or have you ever done a merge mailing, only to have to print out and sign each letter individually? Wouldn't it be better if you could just sign all these documents electronically and send them electronically to their respective recipients? This article will shed some light on what is meant by electronic and digital signatures as well as provide details of how you can digitally sign a document in Word.

On June 30, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed into law the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (E-SIGN Act), which became effective throughout the U.S. on October 1, 2000 (for a copy go to http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_cong_bills&docid=f:s761enr.txt.pdf). The E-SIGN Act implemented a national standard for all electronic transactions that broadly encouraged the use of electronic signatures, contracts and records by providing legal validity for these instruments as long as the signatories complied with the standards of the Act. The E-SIGN Act does not mandate any specific method of technology be used in order for business to conduct electronic transactions. It simply provides a framework within which parties can conduct business electronically with the assurance that their signed documents are legally valid and enforceable. Since the E-SIGN Act is so broad in scope, a “signed” electronic transaction can comprise anything from a simple e-mail exchange to a complex public key/private key authentication procedure.

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