Electronic signature authentication

Method of authenticating a signature on a work document, comprising:

• a remote server generating a digital work fingerprint of the work document;
• the remote server generating a representation file of the work document;
• transmitting the representation file and the digital work fingerprint to a client station from the remote server via a wide area communication network;
• generating at least one digital representation fingerprint of the representation file;
• generating a file to be signed containing at least the digital work fingerprint and the digital representation fingerprint;
• the client station generating only one client signature from the file to be signed;
• and
• generating a client signature file containing at least the file to be signed and the client signature.