PDF Signature
Draw, type or upload a signature, drop it exactly where it belongs, and flatten it into the page.
Only for documents you are authorised to change
Drop a PDF here
Signed in this page. The file never leaves your browser.
Drag on the page to move the signature.
Sign here with a mouse, trackpad or finger.
Standard PDF fonts — nothing to embed.
A PNG with a transparent background looks best.
Per cent of the page width.
Lower it to sign over printed text.
Draws a line under the signature with the date beneath it, the way a printed form asks for.
This is a picture of a signature
The signature is drawn into the page as ink. There is no certificate, no document hash and no cryptographic proof of who signed or that the file is unchanged since. That is what most forms, leases and delivery notes ask for, but it is not a digital signature in the legal sense — and flattening ink into a page does not lock the page or hide anything underneath it.
Everything here runs on your device. Nothing you enter is uploaded or stored.
Sign a PDF in the page you are reading. Draw a signature with a mouse, trackpad or finger, type a name, or upload a picture of the signature you already use on paper. Drag it onto the page, size it, and download a signed file. The PDF is read and written here, so nothing is uploaded to anyone.
How to use it
- Drop or choose a PDF. Page one appears in the preview.
- Pick Draw, Type or Upload, and make the signature.
- Drag on the page to move it. Set the width, the opacity and the ink colour.
- Turn on the dated rule if the form expects one, then press Sign and download.
What “signed” means here
There are two different things called a signature in a PDF, and tools are rarely honest about which one they sell. A digital signature binds a certificate and a cryptographic hash of the document into the file, so a reader can say who signed it and prove that not one byte has changed since. An electronic signature is a mark you make to show intent — a drawn squiggle, a typed name, a scanned image. This tool makes the second kind.
That is not a lesser thing for most work. Rental agreements, school forms, NDAs, timesheets, contractor invoices and courier receipts are all routinely accepted with a drawn or typed signature, and both UK and EU law treat a simple electronic signature as a signature. What it will not do is satisfy a request for a qualified or certified signature, and it will not survive a challenge where somebody disputes that they signed. If either of those is on the table, a certificate-based service is the right tool and this one is not.
Three ways to make the mark
Drawing gives the most convincing result, and the pad here is deliberately tall — a signature drawn in a thin strip comes out as a scribble. Your strokes are recorded as fractions of the pad rather than pixels, so the size of your screen never reaches the file, and the proportions you drew are the proportions that land on the page. Undo removes the last stroke rather than the lot.
Typing uses the fonts every PDF reader already carries, which is why the script option is an italic serif rather than a handwriting face. Embedding a handwriting font would add hundreds of kilobytes to every signed document, and that trade is worth naming instead of making quietly.
Uploading suits anyone who already has a signature scanned or photographed. Choose a PNG with a transparent background if you have one — a JPEG carries a white rectangle that will sit on top of the page. The image keeps its own aspect ratio, because a stretched signature is recognisable as fake at a glance.
Placement, rotation and the dated rule
Position is stored as a fraction of the page, not as a pixel offset in the preview, so the low-resolution thumbnail you drag around cannot leak into the output. Pages carry a rotation flag separately from their coordinates, which is why signatures land sideways or off the sheet in tools that ignore it; this one converts from the orientation you are looking at, so the signature reads upright on a page turned 90 or 270 degrees. Signing near the very bottom of the page with the dated rule turned on lifts the signature far enough that the rule and the date still fit.
The signature is written into the page’s content stream, not added as an annotation. That means it prints, it cannot be selected and dragged away in a reader, and it does not depend on any viewer honouring an annotation layer. It also means the page itself is still an ordinary editable page — flattening ink is not locking a document, and nothing underneath the signature is hidden or removed. Encrypted files are refused rather than quietly corrupted; unlock one first, then sign it.
Questions
Is this a legally binding digital signature?
It is an electronic signature, not a digital one, and the difference matters. A digital signature wraps a certificate and a hash of the document into the file so software can prove who signed it and that nothing changed afterwards. This tool draws a picture of a signature into the page — there is no certificate, no hash and no cryptographic proof. In practice that is what most leases, consent forms, invoices and delivery notes accept, and in many countries a typed or drawn mark counts as a valid signature. If a counterparty specifically asks for a certified or qualified signature, or the document is going to a court or a land registry, you need a certificate-based service instead.
Can someone delete my signature from the file?
Not by clicking on it. Many signing tools add the signature as an annotation, which sits in a separate layer that a reader can select, drag or delete, and which sometimes fails to print. This tool writes the signature into the page's content stream alongside the text, so it behaves like part of the page. Anyone with a PDF editor can still alter the page, because flattening ink into a page is not the same as locking it — no browser tool can prevent editing. If you need the document sealed against changes, that is a certificate-based signature or a password on the permissions, not a picture of a pen stroke.
Why does the typed signature not look handwritten?
Because embedding a handwriting typeface would add hundreds of kilobytes to every document you sign, and a script font would have to be shipped to your browser first. The typed option uses the fonts every PDF reader already has, so the closest thing to a script hand is an italic serif. If you want a signature that looks like yours, draw it on the pad or scan the one you sign paper with, save it as a PNG with a transparent background, and upload that — the image option keeps its own proportions and never stretches.
Does the signature hide what is underneath it?
No. The ink is drawn on top, and the text under it is still in the file, still selectable and still searchable. Lowering the opacity so a signature sits over printed text is a visual choice, not a way of covering anything up. This is the same trap as cropping — if content genuinely has to be unreadable, it must be removed from the file or the page rasterised, and no signature, box or highlight will do it.
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