How to sign a PDF online: a step-by-step guide

Drop the PDF anywhere on the page, or press Add files. The document opens big in the middle, every page one under the other; scroll to the page you want to sign, or jump there with the page field above it or the thumbnails beside it. A Word, Excel or PowerPoint file or a photo works too - it is turned into a PDF as it arrives.

Under Your signature, the Draw tab is a pad: sign on it with the mouse, a touchpad, a finger or a stylus.

• Pen and Eraser - draw, or rub out a part. What you rub out turns transparent, not white.
• Undo takes back the last stroke; Clear starts again.
• Ink - one of the ready inks, or any colour you mix. A change recolours what you have already drawn.

When you like it, press Use this signature.

Type writes your name in one of three handwriting styles - pick the one that suits you under the field.

Image takes a photo or scan of your signature on paper (PNG or JPG). Leave Remove the paper on, and the light background turns transparent so only the ink is placed on the page - sign on white paper with a dark pen for the cleanest result.

Whichever way you make it, the signature becomes a transparent picture cropped to the ink, so it sits on the line without a white box around it.

Click the page where the signature should go - it lands there. Then:

• drag it to move it;
• pull its corner to make it bigger or smaller;
• the × on it removes it.

Signature size in the rail sets how large a newly placed signature is, as a share of the page width. Put it on every page repeats the signature at the same spot on all pages - for documents that are initialled on every sheet. Remove from this file takes every placement off the document.

Two signers, or a full signature and a set of initials? Make as many signatures as you need. They line up in the rail as tiles: the ringed one is active, and a click on the page places that one. A badge on each tile counts how often it has been placed.

• The dashed tile adds another one - its pen, T and picture buttons open the builder on the Draw, Type or Image tab.
• A click on a tile makes it the active one.
• The × on a tile removes that signature and every placement of it.

Press Sign PDF. The line under the button counts the signatures placed. The signed file is saved to your device at once; the button then says Saved and turns into Save, which saves the same file again.

Several documents? Add them all: each keeps its own placements, and the signed files are saved together as a ZIP.

With a Pro account, Save to my account under the active signature keeps it, and next time it is waiting above the builder - one click and it is on the page. That is the one thing we keep on our side, only when you press the button, and only the signature picture - never the document.

It is the same as signing a printout and scanning it: a picture of your signature on the page. That is enough wherever a signature only has to be seen - an internal form, a delivery note, a letter. It does not prove who signed, or that the document hasn't changed since, because anyone could copy the picture.

Where that matters - a contract, an invoice, an official submission - use Digitally Sign PDF with your certificate (.p12 or .pfx): a PDF reader then shows who signed and warns if anything changed afterwards. The two go together, too: a digital signature can carry your handwritten one as its visible appearance.

• A form to fill in before signing? Fill PDF forms.
• Text, a date or a tick to add next to the signature? Edit PDF.
• Received a signed PDF? Verify PDF Signature checks its digital signatures.