Abstract: According to the invention, a digital document is protected through: receiving (11) the digital document; receiving (12) associated data comprising at least partially data from the digital document; creating (13) a hash of the associated data; asymmetrically encrypting (14-15) the hash with a private key to generate a digital signature; encoding (16) in a machine-readable code the digital signature and the associated data; and recording (17) the machine-readable code onto a resulting hardcopy. The authenticity of a printed hardcopy of the digital document can be verified through comparison (31) of data extracted from the printed hardcopy (21) with the associated data decoded (23) and verified (24-30) from the machine-readable code.