The test a sheet has to pass
Every certifying desk in this chain works the same way: it compares a signature or seal on a page against a specimen it holds. A page with no such mark gives it nothing to compare, so it cannot be certified however important the contents are. That single requirement decides which papers belong on this route and which need work first.
So what you need for an apostille for Malaysia is not a particular kind of information but a particular kind of page — one that a recognised body signed or sealed, in an unaltered state. Get that right and the rest of the route is posting, paying and waiting.
Papers that pass, and papers that do not
Sealed copies of civil entries pass, and Coventry Register Office, Cheylesmore Manor House, Manor House Drive, Coventry CV1 2ND, prints them from the births, marriages and deaths registered in the city. Court papers and records signed by a company officer generally pass on the same principle, because a recognised mark sits on the page.
Home printouts, screenshots, photographs of a certificate and forwarded PDF files do not, since the mark on them is a picture rather than a signature. Nor does a page you wrote and signed yourself. None of that is a judgement about the contents; it is simply that an apostille issued in Coventry for use in Malaysia has to attach to something checkable.
Why the test matters twice here
Malaysia has not joined the Hague Apostille Convention, so the single-certificate shortcut does not reach it. A paper heading there carries the British certificate first and then a consular stamp added by the desk acting for the country. Both marks belong on the sheet before it travels, and the order between them is fixed.
An apostille for Malaysia, on its own, would leave the file one stamp short. Because there are two desks rather than one, a sheet that scrapes through on doubtful footing has two chances to be handed back, and the second refusal comes after both the copy and the British fee have been paid for.
Turning an ineligible page into an eligible one
The fix is nearly always the same: go back to the body that issued the thing and ask it for a sealed version rather than a convenience copy. For a civil record that means the register office. For a college transcript, a court order or a company record it means the institution that holds the file and keeps a signature on record.
Build that step into the front of the timetable, because it happens before anything else and its length is outside your control. An apostille from United Kingdom to Malaysia is priced per document at £45 by standard post, or £40 per document on the next-day service open to registered businesses, and the consular desk charges separately for the stamp it adds.