A PFX file contains all the information that makes up an X.509
Digital Certificate that can be used by PentaPDF-PRO to Digitally sign
PDF files.
PKCS stands for Public Key Cryptography Standards that were developed
and published by RSA laboratories.
The PKCS #12 Standard defines the Personal Information Exchange
Syntax Standard. This defines a file format commonly used to
store private keys with accompanying Public key certificates protected
with a password-based symmetric key. Such files use the extensions PFX
or P12.
Once you have acquired your Personal Information exchange certificate
(commonly called "Email certificate") perform the steps outlined
below:
From the Tools menu of Internet Explorer (or using similar tools with
other browsers) select Internet Options.
Proceed to the Content tab and press the Certificates
button.
Select the Certificate you want to use to make a PFX file using your
browser's Export feature.
You will see a Wizard that will guide you through the following steps.
By default the Export process will NOT include the Digital Certificate's
Private key.
If you leave this option selected you WILL NOT be able to create
a PKCS#12 compliant file because the PKCS standard states that "the
file format stores private keys with accompanying Public key certificates
protected with a password-based symmetric key". Therefore, if
you do not export the Certificate's private key you will only be able
to export .CER files and .P7B files which refer to previous standards.
By selecting to export the private key you enable your browser to
create a PFX file which will be compliant with PKCS#12.
You can now create a PFX file. We suggest to leave the default settings
that present the first and third options as NOT selected (i.e. unchecked).
Insert a password that will be requested when you want to use this
Digital Certificate file.
Now specify a name for the resulting PFX file.
You will be presented with a summary of the export process.
You will have to insert the proper password to complete the export
process.
If the password is wrong you will see the faulting message.
If you insert the correct password you will see the following message.
You can now have PentaPDF import this digital certificate and use it
for digitally signing PDF files.
