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Sign PDF

Draw, type or add a photo of your signature and put it on any page of a PDF, right in your browser.

Maintained by BrowserTools · Last updated 2026-09-29

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Most of the paperwork that still needs a signature arrives as a PDF: a rental agreement, a consent form from a school, an offer letter, a supplier contract, a delivery note. Printing it, signing with a pen and scanning it back takes a printer, a scanner and ten minutes, and the result is a blurry image of every page. This tool does the same job in the browser. You create your signature once, then click or tap the spot on the page where it belongs, and the tool writes it into the PDF as a clean transparent image while the rest of the document stays exactly as it was, with its text still selectable and searchable.

Frequently asked questions

Is my PDF uploaded anywhere?
No. The file is opened by pdf.js and modified by pdf-lib, both running as JavaScript inside your browser. Your document, your signature image and the signed result stay on your device, and once the page has loaded the tool keeps working without an internet connection. This matters because the documents people sign are usually the private ones: contracts, medical forms, bank and employment papers.
Is this a legally valid signature?
It is a simple electronic signature: an image of your signature added to the document. Most countries recognise electronic signatures in law, following principles such as the UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Signatures, and in everyday business a signature like this is widely accepted for contracts, forms and approvals. Its weight as evidence depends on being able to show that you applied it and agreed to the document, for example through the email thread in which you sent it. Some documents, such as wills, property transfers, powers of attorney or anything that needs a notary, often require a handwritten signature or a certified electronic one. This is general information, not legal advice, so check the rules that apply to your document and country.
What is the difference between this and a digital signature?
A certificate-based digital signature uses cryptography: a certificate issued to you by a trusted provider signs a fingerprint of the whole file, and PDF readers can then confirm who signed and detect any change made afterwards. The signature this tool adds is visual only. It looks like a signature on paper, but it does not prove identity and it does not lock the document, so anyone could copy the image or edit the file later. If the recipient asks for an advanced, qualified or certificate-based signature, you need a signing certificate and software or a service that supports it.
Can I sign on my phone?
Yes. The drawing pad works with a finger or stylus, and the pages respond to touch: tap a page to place the selected signature, drag it with one finger to move it, and pull the round corner handle to make it bigger or smaller. The page itself still scrolls normally when you swipe outside a placed signature. For the neatest result on a small screen, turn the phone sideways so the drawing pad is wider.
How does removing the background from an uploaded signature work?
Every pixel lighter than the threshold becomes transparent, and pixels just below it fade out gradually so the edges of the strokes stay smooth. The result is cropped to the ink, so the placement box fits the signature. If traces of grey paper or shadow remain, raise the threshold. If thin parts of the strokes disappear, lower it. A signature in dark ink on white paper, photographed in even daylight without flash, gives the cleanest result.
Which fonts can I use for a typed signature?
The site does not download extra fonts, so the typed styles come from handwriting fonts already installed on your computer or phone, such as Segoe Script, Lucida Handwriting or Ink Free on Windows and Snell Roundhand or Bradley Hand on Apple devices. The tool only lists the ones it finds, plus your browser's generic cursive font as a fallback, which is why the list differs from device to device. The typed signature is saved as an image, so the recipient sees exactly what you chose even without that font.
Can I add several signatures, initials and a date?
Yes. Everything you create goes into a small tray above the pages: a drawn signature, typed initials, a date stamp or any short text. Select an item and tap a page to place it, as many times as you need, for example initials on every page and the full signature and date on the last one. Placed items can be moved, resized or removed with the cross before you download.
Will the signature be in the right place in other PDF readers?
It should be. Some PDFs store pages rotated, or have a visible area (the CropBox) that is smaller than the full page and offset from its corner, and a naive tool drops the signature sideways or in the wrong spot. This tool converts your placement using the page rotation and the visible box, and rotates the image to match, so it appears upright where you put it. The signature is part of the page content, so it also prints.
Can I sign a password-protected PDF?
Not directly. A PDF that needs a password to open, or that is encrypted against changes, has to be unlocked with the password first, in the program that created it or a PDF editor you trust. After that you can open the unlocked copy here and sign it.

About Sign PDF

There are three ways to make the signature. Draw it with a mouse, a finger on a phone or a stylus on a tablet: strokes are smoothed as you go, you can choose black or blue ink and the line thickness, and undo the last stroke if it went wrong. Type your name and pick one of the handwriting-style fonts installed on your device. Or upload a photo or scan of your real signature on paper, and the tool removes the white background by turning light pixels transparent, with a threshold you can adjust for grey paper or faint ink. Besides signatures you can add date stamps in ISO or your local format and short text such as initials, your printed name or the word Approved. Each item can be placed several times, on as many pages as you need, then dragged into position and resized with the corner handle.

The PDF never leaves your device. Pages are rendered as previews with pdf.js as you scroll, so long documents open quickly, and the signed copy is built with pdf-lib and downloaded straight back to you as name-signed.pdf. Placement takes page rotation and cropped page boxes into account, so the signature lands where you put it in every PDF reader, not shifted or sideways. Keep in mind that this adds a visual electronic signature, the digital equivalent of signing by hand. It does not attach a certificate-based digital signature, which is a different technology explained in the questions below.

The signature that made a word

John Hancock signed the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 with such large, sweeping letters that his name became American slang for a signature: people are asked to "put your John Hancock here". Long before that, signatures were a rarity. For most of history documents were authenticated with seals pressed into wax or clay, because few people could write and a seal was harder to fake than a name.

The handwritten signature became the norm in Europe only gradually, and England's Statute of Frauds of 1677 helped by requiring certain contracts to be "signed" by the parties, a word lawyers later interpreted broadly. Courts accepted initials, marks, rubber stamps and eventually telegrams as signatures, on the idea that what counts is the intention to be bound, not the ink.

That same idea is what lets electronic signatures work today. The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Commerce of 1996, adopted in some form by dozens of countries, states that a legal requirement for a signature can be met electronically if the method identifies the person and shows their approval. The pen stroke on a screen is simply the newest way of making the old mark.

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