Some states, such as Texas and Kentucky, require notaries to use an x.509 digital certificate issued directly to them. If this applies in your state, you’ll need to enable signing with a custom digital certificate in PandaDoc Notary.
Important: Before enabling this feature, confirm with your Secretary of State that a notary-issued digital certificate is required. We don’t recommend enabling it unless it’s mandatory, as it introduces additional setup and signing steps.
What you will need to get started
Before you can use a digital certificate in PandaDoc, you need three things:
Digital certificate – think of this as an electronic seal that proves you're an authorized notary. You'll purchase this from a certificate provider (companies like IdenTrust or SSL.com). Once issued, the provider will give you step-by-step instructions to install it on your computer (here is how to retrieve your certificate from IdenTrust).
Trust1Connector software – a secure program that allows PandaDoc to safely access your digital certificate. It acts like a secure bridge between the app and your certificate, so your private information stays protected.
Active PandaDoc Notary account – your notary profile needs to be set up and approved in PandaDoc.
Step 1: Install Trust1Connector
Trust1Connector is the software that keeps your certificate secure and lets PandaDoc use it.
For Mac users:
For Windows users: Download here
Once you've installed it, restart your computer.
Step 2: Turn on digital certificate signing
Open your My Profile page in the PandaDoc Notary app
Look for the Digital certificate option
Check the box next to it
Click Save changes
That's it! Your account is now set up to use a digital certificate.
How to sign a document with your digital certificate
Create and start your notary session as usual
Complete the identity verification and signing steps
Once all parties have signed, it's your turn as the notary to sign
Add your regular signature first
Click the Sign with certificate button
Wait for the certificate widget to load and the document to generate
Click Local Certificate, then click Allow to give PandaDoc permission to access your certificate
If you see a list of certificates, make sure to select your notarial certificate.
Click Confirm to apply your digital certificate
You'll see a confirmation message confirming the document was signed successfully. You can now finish the session.
A separate event will appear in the Latest Activity, showing when the document was signed with your x.509 digital certificate.
Signing after the session is completed
If you weren’t able to sign the document during the session, you can find those sessions in your Journal – they’ll be highlighted in yellow with the status Action required.
To complete the signing:
Open the record in your Journal.
Click Sign with personal certificate.
You’ll be redirected to the document, where you can finish signing.
Checking your signed document
To verify that your digital certificate was properly applied:
Find your session in your notarial journal
Open the session details and download the signed file to your computer
Open the PDF file in Adobe Acrobat Reader (download it if you don't have it)
You should see the validation status “Signed and all signatures are valid”. Then, open the Signature Panel to confirm that the document was signed with your digital certificate.
Troubleshooting
No Certificates appearing
If you click on Local Certificate and see an empty list:
This usually means your digital certificate wasn't installed correctly on your computer
Go back to your certificate provider's instructions and reinstall the certificate
Once reinstalled, restart your computer and try again
Trust1Connector not working on Mac
If you see an error message that says "Failed to contact Trust1Connector," it means the software isn't installed properly on your Mac.
To fix this:
First, make sure you downloaded the right version for your Mac. Check whether you have an Intel Mac or Apple Silicon (M1 and newer).
If you have an Apple Silicon Mac (M1, M2, etc.), you need to install Rosetta 2 first. Open your Terminal app and paste this command:
sudo softwareupdate --install-rosetta
After Rosetta 2 is installed, reinstall Trust1Connector using the correct link for your Mac type.
To verify the installation was successful, check that this folder exists on your computer: ~/Library/Application Support/Trust1Team/
If you're still having issues, you can check the installation log for error messages by opening Terminal and typing:
tail -f /var/log/install.log
If none of these steps work, contact Support with the error message you're seeing.