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How to Electronically Sign PDF Documents Without Printing and Scanning Them

Person signing a document on their smartphone
Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock.com

Y'all've been emailed a document, and you have to sign it and send it dorsum. You could print out the document, sign it, and and so browse it dorsum in and electronic mail information technology. But in that location's a meliorate, faster way.

We'll prove you lot how to chop-chop add your signature to any PDF document, saving it as a standard PDF file that can be read anywhere. You tin do this on Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, Android, Chrome Os, Linux—whatsoever platform y'all prefer.

Electronic Signatures, Not Digital Signatures

  1. Windows: Open the PDF in Adobe Reader and click the "Fill & Sign" button in the right pane.
  2. Mac: Open the PDF in Preview, click the Toolbox button, so click Sign
  3. iPhone and iPad: Open the PDF attachment in Mail, then click "Markup and Reply" to sign.
  4. iPhone and Android: Download Adobe Fill & Sign, open up the PDF, and tap the Signature push.
  5. Chrome: Install the HelloSign extension, upload your PDF, and click the Signature button.

Start, let'southward straighten out some terminology. This article deals with electronic signatures, non digital signatures, which are something else entirely. A digital signature is cryptographically secure and verifies that someone with your private signing key (in other words, you) has seen the certificate and authorized it. It's very secure, merely also complicated.

An electronic signature, on the other hand, is but an image of your signature overlaid on summit of a PDF certificate. You can do it with all kinds of apps, and it's what most people will require when they send you a certificate to sign. Send them a PDF file with a digital signature and they won't know what to make of it. For many businesses, just accepting signed documents by email rather than forcing you to fax them is a huge technological leap.

And then sure, the below methods aren't perfectly secure—but neither is press something, scribbling over it with a pen, and then scanning it again. At least this is faster!

Windows: Use Adobe Reader

While Adobe Reader isn't the well-nigh lightweight PDF viewer, it is ane of the most feature-packed, and actually has excellent support for signing PDF documents. Other third-political party PDF readers may offer this feature, just they generally require y'all buy a paid version before using their signature features.

RELATED: The All-time PDF Readers for Windows

To sign a document using Adobe Reader, starting time open the PDF document in the Adobe Acrobat Reader DC application. Click the "Make full & Sign" button in the correct pane.

Open Adobe Acrobat Reader and click the "Fill & Sign" button

Click the "Sign" push on the toolbar and select "Add Signature" to add your signature to Adobe Acrobat Reader DC.

If you need to add other information to the document, you can apply the other buttons on the toolbar to do so. For example, y'all tin type text or add checkmarks to fill in forms using buttons on the Make full & Sign toolbar.

Choose the "Add Signature" or "Add Initials" button

Y'all tin create a signature in one of three ways. Past default, Adobe Reader selects "Blazon" and then y'all can type your proper noun and take information technology converted to a signature. This won't look like your real signature, so it probably isn't ideal.

Instead, you'll probably desire to select "Draw" and then draw your signature using your mouse or a affect screen. You tin also select "Paradigm" if yous'd like to sign a piece of paper, scan it with a scanner, and then add your written signature to Adobe Reader. (Yes, this requires scanning, merely you only have to practice this once, after which you lot can employ that signature on any documents you lot electronically sign in the future.)

After creating a signature, click "Apply" to utilise information technology to the document. Leave "Salvage Signature" checked and you can quickly add together this signature in the futurity.

Use your mouse to sign your signature and then click the "Apple" button

Position your signature where you want it with your mouse and click to apply it. If y'all chose to save your signature, y'all'll notice it easily accessible in the "Sign" menu in the future.

To save your signed PDF document, click File > Relieve and select a location for the file.

Save your signed PDF by clicking File > Save and choosing a location for the document

Mac: Use Preview

Mac users are luckier than Windows users. The Preview application included with macOS has integrated document-signing features. Cheers to the excellent trackpads congenital into MacBooks, you can actually describe your signature on the trackpad with one of your fingers to enter information technology into Preview. On a new MacBook with a "Force Touch" trackpad, this is fifty-fifty pressure sensitive, allowing for even more than accurate signatures.

RELATED: Use Your Mac's Preview App to Merge, Split, Mark Upward, and Sign PDFs

You could too just sign a piece of paper and "scan" it with your webcam, if you prefer creating your signature the old-fashioned way (or if you have an iMac with no trackpad).

To sign a document, open up a PDF document in Preview (this should be the default app that opens when you double-click on a PDF file, unless you've inverse information technology). Click the toolbox-shaped "Testify Markup Toolbar" push, and then click the "Sign" button on the toolbar that appears.

Yous'll exist prompted to either create a signature by dragging your finger over the trackpad, or by signing a piece of newspaper and scanning information technology with your webcam. Capture your signature once and Preview will retrieve information technology for the future.

Once you've captured a signature, you can select information technology in the carte that appears later on you click the "Sign" button. Your signature is applied as an image that tin be dragged around and resized to fit the document.

Click on the signature you created to insert it into the document

The other options on the toolbar allow you lot to blazon text and draw shapes on the document, allowing you to fill in forms, if necessary.

When yous're done, click File > Save to save the PDF, applying your signature to the file. You can also click File > Indistinguishable instead to create a copy of the PDF and relieve your changes into a new copy of the file without modifying the original.

If you don't similar Preview for any reason, you can likewise use Adobe Reader DC on a Mac. It'll work just like signing a certificate on Windows, so run into the instructions in the Windows section for information on that.

iPhone and iPad: Use Mail or Adobe Make full & Sign

RELATED: How to Sign Documents and Mark Up Attachments in iOS Mail service

On an iPhone or iPad, you can sign documents using the markup characteristic in the iPhone or iPad Mail app. If you have a Mac and utilise Preview to sign documents, your signature will really synchronize from your Mac to your iPhone or iPad then you don't take to create it a 2d time.

This feature is convenient, merely information technology simply works if you want to sign documents in the Postal service app. For example, you lot may be emailed a PDF document and you may need to sign it and email information technology correct back.

To do this, you lot'll need to receive an electronic mail with a PDF file attached, tap the PDF zipper, and click the toolbox-shaped "Markup and Reply" icon at the bottom right corner of the screen while viewing the PDF.

Tap the "Markup and Reply" button from the iPhone or iPad's share menu

You'll then be able to add together a signature past borer the signature button at the bottom right corner of your screen. You can as well type text and draw on the document, if you like.

When yous tap "Done", the Post app will automatically create a reply to the email with your signed document attached. You can type an email message and then send the signed certificate.

Select the signature button in the bottom-right cornerDraw your signature and then tap the "Done" button

While this is convenient, information technology only works in the Mail service app, so it is very express. If you want to do this from any other app, you'll need a 3rd-party signing app.

In that location are quite a few options hither, but we like Adobe's Adobe Fill up & Sign app, which allows you to sign an unlimited number of documents for free. It tin even capture pictures of newspaper documents with your camera, and so you can create digital copies of paper forms. You can sign a certificate past writing on your touch screen with a finger or stylus, and they too allow you lot to type text into PDF documents to fill up them in.

To become a PDF certificate from another app into Adobe Fill & Sign, find the PDF file in another app, tap the "Share" button, and choose the Adobe Fill & Sign app. You tin and so tap the signature push button to easily sign the document. When you lot're washed, tap the "Share" push button within Adobe Make full & Sign to send the signed document to another app.

Place your signature and resize it to fit the documentShare the document and select the app you wish to view the document in

If yous're a business organisation looking for a more full-featured tool, or if y'all but don't like Adobe Sign & Fill, we also particularly like SignNow. It works very well and allows yous to sign documents with your finger. You lot can sign upwards to v documents a calendar month for gratis, just afterwards that, it requires a monthly subscription fee. It's a good culling, though.

Android: Utilize Adobe Fill & Sign

Android doesn't come with a built-in app that tin do this. Instead, you'll need to utilize a third-party app. Merely similar on the iPhone and iPad, we like Adobe Fill up & Sign, which allows you to sign an unlimited number of documents a month for gratis. It can also capture pictures of paper documents with your camera so y'all can sign them electronically.

Later installing the app, yous tin can open PDF documents in the app and tap the signature button to sign them. You can and so share the signed document with some other app by borer the "Share" push.

Open the document in the Adobe Fill & Sign appCreate your signature and tap the "Done" button

Just like on iPhone and iPad, nosotros too recommend SignNow if you want something a bit more than feature-filled and are willing to pay (since it only offers up to five signatures a month for gratis).

Chromebook: Use HelloSign

On a Chromebook, you lot'll detect a variety of web signing services that piece of work for you. We like HelloSign, which offers a good web interface as well as a Chrome app that integrates with Google Drive. It allows y'all to sign up to iii documents a calendar month for gratuitous.

HelloSign's bones web interface allows you to easily upload PDF documents and sign them by drawing your signature or uploading an image. You can so email the signed document directly to someone or download the document and do any you want with it.

Create your signature inside Hello Sign

If you don't like HelloSign, DocuSign works well on a Chromebook too, offering an app that integrates with Google Drive for signing and a browser extension that allows you to sign documents from Gmail. But DocuSign doesn't offer any complimentary signatures. SignNow too offers a Chrome app for Google Drive and extension for Gmail, but the app and extension aren't likewise-reviewed.

Linux: It's Complicated

This is a bit tougher on Linux, as the official version of Adobe Reader for Linux was discontinued. Even the sometime, out-of-date versions bachelor for Linux don't take this functionality, nor practise pop integrated PDF viewers like Evince and Okular.

Y'all may want to effort a web-based tool like HelloSign, discussed in the Chromebook section to a higher place, for the easiest feel.

If you want to use a desktop app, Xournal is probably the most convenient tool for signing PDFs on Linux. It can annotate PDFs, calculation images to them. Kickoff, you lot'll demand to create an image of your signature—sign a piece of newspaper, browse it into your Linux system, and make clean it upwardly. You lot could potentially simply capture a photo of it with your webcam or smartphone'due south camera, as well. Yous may desire to tweak it in GIMP so it has a transparent background, or just make sure y'all sign a white piece of paper and that the groundwork is entirely white.

Install Xournal from your Linux distribution's software installation tool, open the PDF, and click the Tools > Image menu selection. This volition let you insert the image of your signature, and yous can reposition and resize information technology as necessary and so it fits in the signature field.

Install Xournal from your Linux distribution's software installation tool, open the PDF, and click the Tools > Image menu option

Having to actually scan and create an prototype file is a little bit annoying, but you tin use this method to quickly sign documents in the future later on y'all've gotten a good image of your signature.

Source: https://www.howtogeek.com/164668/how-to-electronically-sign-documents-without-printing-and-scanning-them/

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