Printing a document only to sign it and scan it again is slow, uses paper and ink, and often produces a crooked grey copy. You can sign a PDF directly on your phone or computer in about a minute, and the result looks cleaner too.

Step by step

  1. Open Sign PDF and add the document.
  2. Create your signature in one of three ways:
    • Draw it with your finger, a stylus or a mouse.
    • Type your name and choose a handwriting style.
    • Upload a photo of your signature on white paper.
  3. Click or tap the page where the signature should go. Drag it into position and use the corner handle to resize it.
  4. Add the date if needed with “Add today’s date”, and drag it next to your signature.
  5. Click Sign PDF and download the signed copy.

Tips for a signature that looks real

  • On a phone, draw with your finger in landscape mode. You get more room and a more natural signature.
  • For an uploaded signature, sign on plain white paper with a dark pen, and take the photo in daylight without shadows. Keep “Make the white background transparent” turned on so only the ink appears on the page.
  • Use blue ink if people need to tell the signed original from copies.
  • Size it like a real signature, roughly the height of two or three lines of text. Very large signatures look odd on official documents.

Signing several pages

Contracts and rental agreements often need a signature or initials on every page. After creating your signature once, click on each page where it should appear. You can place it as many times as you need before downloading.

If the document also has form fields to fill in, such as your name and address, fill those first with Fill PDF Forms, then sign the completed form. Our guide on filling in PDF forms on your phone explains how.

Is an electronic signature legally valid?

What Sign PDF adds is an electronic signature: a picture of your signature placed on the document. Many countries give electronic signatures legal recognition for most everyday agreements. In Pakistan, the Electronic Transactions Ordinance 2002 recognizes electronic documents and signatures, and laws such as the ESIGN Act in the United States and eIDAS in the European Union do the same.

Some documents need more. Certain government, court, property and banking documents may require a certificate-based digital signature, which uses a cryptographic certificate issued to you to prove who signed and that nothing changed afterwards, or they may require a signature on paper. If you’re not sure, ask the person or organization who sent you the document what they accept. This article is general information, not legal advice.

Keep your signature safe

A picture of your signature is valuable to fraudsters, so think about where you create it. Many online signing sites upload your document and store your signature on their servers. With Convertpdfly, your signature is created in your browser and only added to your downloaded file. Nothing is uploaded or saved, so the signature can’t be reused from our site.

After signing, you can stop further changes by adding a password with Protect PDF. If the signed file is too big to email, shrink it with Compress PDF.