Sign PDF Online – Draw, Type or Upload Your Signature

Sign a PDF online without printing it

The old routine was to print the form, sign it in ink, scan it and email the scan. This tool shortens that. You can sign a PDF online by drawing your signature with a mouse, a stylus or a finger, typing your name in a handwriting-style font, or uploading a photo of a signature you already have. Then you drag it onto the page where it belongs, as many times and on as many pages as the document needs, and download the signed copy.

It suits the everyday paperwork that only needs to show a signature on the page: offer-letter acceptances, rental and service agreements, consent and leave forms, vendor onboarding sheets, bank and college forms, and invoices. It is the wrong tool for anything that must carry a certificate-based digital signature, and the next section explains the difference.

What a signature image is, and what it is not

What you create here is a picture of a signature placed on the page. It looks like a signature, prints like one, and is accepted wherever a scanned or pasted signature is accepted. The page says it plainly: this tool adds a visual signature, and it is not a certificate-based cryptographic digital signature.

A cryptographic signature is different in kind. It is created with a private key tied to a certificate, it identifies the signer, and it makes the document show a warning if a single byte changes afterwards. Nothing like that happens here. There is no certificate, no timestamp from an authority, no audit trail, and no way to detect changes made after signing. Some e-filings and e-tenders in India ask for a Digital Signature Certificate (DSC) or an Aadhaar-based eSign, and an image will not satisfy them. Check what the receiving office accepts before you choose this route.

How to sign a PDF in six steps

1. 1
   Drop the PDF onto the box that says Drop the PDF to sign, or click to browse. The first page appears on the right.
2. 2
   Make your signature on the left. On the Draw tab, sign inside the pad, adjust Pen thickness and Pen colour, use Undo stroke or Clear if you slip, and press Use this signature. On the Type tab, enter Your name, pick a Style (Script, Roundhand, Handwriting or Formal serif), set the Size and Colour, and press Use this signature. On the Upload tab, choose a PNG, JPG or WebP file under Signature image.
3. 3
   Press Add to page followed by the current page number. The signature lands near the lower middle of the page.
4. 4
   Drag it to the right spot. Pull the small handle at its lower right corner to resize it, and use the two Rotate buttons to turn it in 15-degree steps. Duplicate copies it, Delete removes it, and Undo and Redo go back and forward.
5. 5
   Use the arrows above the page to move to other pages, and add the signature again wherever it is needed. The counter shows how many you have placed.
6. 6
   Press Sign and download, with the number of signatures in brackets, then press Download to save signed.pdf.

How each kind of signature is created

A drawn signature is recorded as a list of pen strokes on a 600 by 220 pixel pad, so Undo stroke can take back the last one. When you press Use this signature, the transparent margin around your ink is trimmed to an 8-pixel border and the result is saved as a PNG with a transparent background, so it will not leave a white box on the page.

A typed signature is your name drawn on a canvas using a font stack for the style you chose. The fonts come from your device, such as Segoe Script on Windows or Snell Roundhand on Apple systems, with a generic handwriting family as the fallback. The same name can therefore look different on a phone and on a laptop. Nothing is downloaded from a font service.

An uploaded signature is checked by its contents, not only its file name, so a renamed file is rejected. It is redrawn through a canvas as a PNG, which keeps the transparency of a PNG and converts a WebP into something a PDF can hold.

How the signature is placed in the PDF

Every placement is stored as fractions of the page rather than screen pixels, because the preview is whatever width fits your browser while the page is measured in points. When you save, the fractions are converted once and pdf-lib draws the image on top of the page. Rotation turns around the signature's centre, which is what you expect when dragging one.

The original page content is left alone. Text stays selectable, links keep working, and page sizes and orientations do not change. If you place the same signature several times, the picture is embedded once and reused. The tool works on one PDF of up to 100 MB and 500 pages, and it keeps up to 40 steps of undo history.

Draw, type or upload: which to choose

If a recipient says they need your handwritten signature, the Upload route with a clear scan of your pen signature is the closest match.

Where a visual signature is usually enough

• Accepting an offer or appointment letter and returning it to HR.
• Rental and leave-and-licence drafts exchanged between two people who know each other.
• Permission slips, NOCs and declarations for a college or school office.
• Quotations, purchase orders and delivery challans between businesses that accept scanned signatures.
• Internal approvals, where the email trail already shows who sent what.
• Forms that will be printed anyway and signed again in front of an official.

A worked example with real numbers

Open an A4 page, which is 595.28 by 841.89 points, or 210 by 297 mm. A new placement is 28 per cent of the page width. That is 0.28 x 595.28 = 166.7 points, or 58.8 mm, a little over 2.3 inches. It begins 36 per cent in from the left edge, which is 214.3 points, so the signature is centred across the page, and its top edge sits 72 per cent of the way down, 606.2 points from the top.

Pull the handle until the signature is about 20 per cent of the page width and it becomes 119.1 points (42 mm) wide. A signature that size is still readable on a printout and leaves more room around it.

Now take a three-page agreement with a signature needed on every page. Add the signature to page 1, press Duplicate, and move the copy; or move to page 2 and press Add to page 2 again. With three placements the button reads Sign and download (3), and the result line reads 3 signature(s) embedded, followed by the file size.

Getting a clean signature image

• Sign on plain white paper with a dark pen. Blue or black ink gives the cleanest edges.
• Photograph the page straight on in even daylight, with no shadow from your phone or hand, and crop tightly around the ink.
• Prefer a PNG with a transparent background. A JPG cannot be transparent, so a white box comes with it, which hides any printed line or text underneath.
• If a form wants a signature photo of a given pixel size or KB range, prepare it with the exam photo and signature resizer first.
• To change the file type, use the image converter before uploading.

Checking the signed file before you send it

Spend one minute on the result. Open signed.pdf in any viewer and confirm that the page count matches the original. Zoom to about 200 per cent on each signature and check that the strokes are crisp, that nothing is cut off at a page edge, and that the signature does not touch printed words. Try selecting a line of text on a signed page: it should still select, which proves the page was not flattened into a picture.

If something is off, sign again from the original PDF rather than from the signed copy, so you do not stack a second signature over the first. Placements are not saved between visits, so make a note of where each signature went.

Mistakes that cause trouble

• Signing before the document is final. Any edit after signing goes undetected, so finish edits first. You can fill the form fields or add text such as a date before signing.
• Placing the signature over printed text. Move it into the blank space or the signature line.
• Shrinking a drawn signature too far. At very small sizes the strokes blur, so draw it with thicker pen settings rather than shrinking it.
• Looking only at the preview. Open the downloaded file and check each signature against what you placed, especially its shape and size.
• Using a typed signature where a handwritten one is expected. Some offices want a scan of a real signature.

Honest limits

The signature is not locked to the document. Anyone who receives the file can copy the picture out of it or remove it in an editor, so do not post a signed agreement publicly. There is no way to invite another person to sign, no signing order, and no email. An encrypted file is refused with a message to unlock it first; if you know the password, unlock the PDF and return. You work on one PDF at a time.

After signing, you may want to add a password so the file cannot be altered casually, or reduce the file size before sending it as an attachment.

Private by design

The PDF and the signature are processed inside your browser. Nothing is uploaded to a Jobsixo server, there is no account, and the signature picture is not stored once you close the tab. The document and the signature stay on your device.