how to make my digital certificate availabe to libreoffice?

robot · January 1, 2019, 8:25pm

I am using libreoffice 6.1.4.2 on Windows 7. When I want to create a digital signature (File > Digital Signatures > Digital Signatures…) or (File > Export As > Export As PDF), I cannot see my certificate. When I click “Start Certificate Manager…” in the “Digital Signtures” dialog, I get an error “could not find any certificate manager.”

My certificate is in Thunderbird 45.4 and Firefox 49 and work.
Googling provides me with references to Tools > Options > Security > Certificate Path, but that does not exist (any more?)
In the expert settings (Tools > Options > Libre Office > Advanced, click Open Expert Configuration), I find an entry called org.openoffice.Office.Common / Security / Scripting, property CertDir, type void. I assume this is the missing cert-path entry. When I click Edit, nothing happens.

I am effectively unable to digitally sign with libreoffice.
Where can I find a “Certificate Manager” for my Windows machine?

mikekaganski · January 3, 2019, 11:09am

I am not familiar with using certificates, but just a guess: on Windows, LibreOffice uses system certificates, not some application certificates (and Mozilla products like Thunderbird and Firefox may use some own certificate management system).

robot · January 5, 2019, 9:02am

Mike, what a good guess, wonderful, it now works! I had only imported the certificate into FF and TB on that machine, and the docs don’t seem to mention the Windows cert store, a pity. Still I wonder why the "Start Certificate Manager does not work, the onboard tool in Windows 7 is even called certmgr.exe.
Thanks for this!

kaduleite · May 16, 2020, 3:20pm

Could you explain how you did to make it work? I have the same issue here.

jumpinetto · March 15, 2021, 5:56pm

Hello I solved by going into LibreOffice Tools>Options>Security Certificate Path select Certificate… and use the Profile stored in Firefox or Thunderbird which hold the Digital Signature. If you dont have the Digital Signature & Certificate set up in Fireforx go under Settings/ Privacy & Security > Certificates and Import your Digital Signature.

Cheers

Jedimaster · January 3, 2019, 12:34pm

Try Tools>Options>Security>TSAS which is for Time Stamped export to PDF and see if that does what you want.

robot · January 5, 2019, 9:06am

No, that is a different thing. Timestamping would in fact only work if I could sign in the first place, with my own certificate.

Gregor1 · January 27, 2022, 5:00pm

Firefox changed rules of api access and you can no longer import personal certificate in to LibreOffice app. So you must use Thunderbird certificate repository instead.

Link fore details on how to do it:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/122058/how-do-i-make-a-digital-certificate-available-to-libreoffice-writer-for-digital

timhae · February 9, 2022, 12:44pm

Unfortunately, part 3 step 5 does only include two checkboxes for me (mail and websites), so there seems to be no option to allow external applications to use the certificate anymore

Gregor1 · February 9, 2022, 9:50pm

Check Part 2: Thunderbird!
You have to install certificate into Thunderbird and that will solve your problem (forget part! 1 does not work).

timhae · February 10, 2022, 7:21am

I am using thunderbird for certificate management, the checkbox is gone there as well

Gregor1 · February 10, 2022, 7:47am

You are on Authorities tab in Certificate Manager! Your Certificates are under Your Certificates tab.

What are Authorities or CA: There are several types of Certificates and for sure you have to import CA Certificate (Certificate Authoritie for Your certificate) if it is not there (most of them are, but not all). CA is a special certificate that works together with Your Certificate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_authority

timhae · February 10, 2022, 8:04am

I have my certificate in there as well, I was just trying to showcase that there is no longer an option to allow third party software to use CAs (e.g. libreoffice to sign pdfs).

Gregor1 · February 10, 2022, 11:55am

There is no “third party” checkbox in Thunderbird (version 91.5.0). Right! That should be OK.

I had this problem a week ago with Ubuntu 20.04. Then in Libreoffice (version 6.4.7.2) File > Digital Signatures > Digital Signatures (dialog): then click Sign Document and then in a dialog Select Certificate you should see your certificate. Signing document in Writer is not ideal since you can not place s digital signature stamp on it. But the document is signed.

If this does not work for you than there is something else that is missing.