How do you sign a PDF without printing it?

Draw your signature, put it on the page where it belongs, and save the PDF. That is an electronic signature: a picture of your handwritten signature placed on the document, the same as signing a printout and scanning it, minus the printer and the scanner. It is what most contracts, forms, leases and permission slips sent by email ask for.

It is not a digital signature. A digital signature is a cryptographic seal made with a certificate, which proves who signed and that nothing changed afterwards. Use your country's eID or a signing service when a document asks for that. To check the digital signatures already in a PDF, use the PDF Signature Reader.

Tool description

This tool adds your signature to a PDF in your browser. Open the PDF, draw your signature with a mouse, finger or pen, or upload a photo or scan of it, then pick the page. Drag the signature where it should go, drag its corner to make it bigger or smaller, and download the signed PDF.

Features

  • Draw a signature in black or blue ink, or upload a PNG, JPG or WebP image of one
  • Removes the white paper around an uploaded signature, so only the ink shows on the page
  • Drag to move, drag the corner to resize, or click the page to move the signature there
  • Works with rotated pages and keeps everything else in the PDF as it was
  • Runs in your browser, so the PDF and your signature never leave your device

Tips

  • For a clean uploaded signature, sign in dark ink on white paper and take the photo in good light, straight from above.
  • The signature opens on the last page, where most documents are signed. Pick another page in the Page list.
  • Select the signature and use the arrow keys to nudge it, with Shift for bigger steps, and the + and - keys to resize it.
  • Password-protected PDFs need the password removed first.