Sign a PDF online, free.

How to sign a PDF online for free, with proof of when you signed

Create a free account, open Sign PDF in the app and upload your PDF, or a Word file, which we convert to PDF for you. Place your signature, initials and date where they belong, draw, type or upload your signature, and finish. The signed copy lands in your Documents, ready to download, with a certificate of completion as its last page. Each signed document counts as one of your plan's monthly documents: 3 a month on Free, 25 on Bronze, unlimited from Silver.

Why we built it this way rather than as a quick stamp-an-image tool: a signature you paste onto a PDF proves very little on its own. When you sign through eSignSimple, the document is stored encrypted, the signing step is recorded in an audit trail with the time, IP address and device, and we keep a SHA-256 fingerprint of the finished file that anyone can check on our verify page. If someone later asks when you signed, or whether the file was changed afterwards, you have an answer. If you only need to type into a form, the Fill PDF tool runs entirely in your browser and does not upload the file.

Tips for a clean signature on a PDF

Draw your signature larger than you need and then scale it down; small, slow strokes look shaky once shrunk. Use dark blue or black ink, which reads well on screen and in print. Place the signature so it sits on the signature line with its baseline just touching it, rather than floating above. Add the date as text next to it if the document asks for one; do not rely on the file's timestamp.

Before you download, zoom in on every page that needed a signature or initials. Missing an initial box on page four is the most common reason a signed PDF gets bounced back. And keep the original, unsigned file too, so you can redo it cleanly if needed.

Signing on your phone versus your desktop

A phone is actually the better device for drawing a signature: your finger on a touchscreen feels close to a pen, and the result looks natural. It is worse for placement, because PDFs designed for A4 or Letter pages are small on a phone screen. Pinch to zoom before you position the signature, and rotate to landscape if the form is dense.

On a desktop, a mouse or trackpad makes drawn signatures look stiff. Our advice is to type your name in a script font or upload a clean image of your signature, then use the larger screen for precise placement. If you sign often, create your signature once with the signature generator and reuse the PNG.

When a self-signed PDF is enough, and when it is not

Signing a PDF yourself and emailing it back is fine for many everyday documents: a form your landlord sent, a school permission slip, an internal approval, an NDA where the other side has asked for a signed copy. Your own audit trail and certificate show when you signed, and the email you send it from shows you returned it.

It is weaker when you are the one who needs proof the other person signed. A PDF they sign on their own and send back shows that someone placed a signature there, not who did it or when, and the file can be edited afterwards without trace. For contracts where you might need to enforce payment or terms, send the document through eSignSimple instead: each signer gets a unique link, every step is logged with timestamps, IP and device, and the completed PDF gets a SHA-256 fingerprint anyone can check on our verify page. Our take is simple: sign your own with Sign PDF, collect everyone else's by sending it.

How it compares to Adobe Fill & Sign and Mac Preview

Adobe Fill & Sign is a capable free app, particularly on mobile, but it pushes you toward an Adobe account and cloud storage. Preview on a Mac signs PDFs locally and well, and if you are on a Mac already it is a perfectly good option. Our tool works differently from both: it runs on any device with a modern browser, needs no installation, card or watermark, and stores the signed document encrypted in your account with an audit trail and certificate, which neither Preview nor a plain stamp gives you. The trade-off is that the file is uploaded rather than kept on your device, and it counts toward your monthly documents. If keeping the file strictly local matters more to you than the evidence, Preview is a good choice on a Mac.

Why does my signature look blurry after I download the PDF?

Almost always, the signature image was made small and then stretched. If you draw a signature in a tiny box and then drag it bigger on the page, or upload a cropped photo that is only a couple of hundred pixels wide, the PDF has to enlarge a low-resolution image and the edges go soft. The fix is the opposite workflow: draw large, fill most of the signature pad, and scale it down to fit the line. Downscaling keeps edges crisp; upscaling never does.

If you upload a photo of your paper signature, sign on plain white paper with a dark pen, photograph it in daylight without shadows, and fill the frame with the signature. When you upload a photo while signing, we clear the near-white background, so a clean, evenly lit photo becomes a transparent signature that sits on the line instead of a grey box. If you would rather not use a photo at all, the signature generator lets you draw or type one instead.

Sometimes the file is fine and the viewer is not. Many phone PDF viewers render a quick low-resolution preview first. Zoom in to 200% in a desktop viewer before you decide the signature is blurry; if it is sharp there, it will print sharply too.

How do I sign a long PDF with initials on every page?

Contracts, loan papers and leases often ask for initials at the foot of every page plus a full signature at the end. Before you start, scroll through the whole document once and note every place that needs something: a 12-page lease might need 12 initials, two signatures and two dates. Then work from the first page to the last, and count when you are done. It sounds pedantic, but a single missing initial is the most common reason a signed document is sent back.

Use a typed version of your initials rather than drawing them each time; it is quicker and every page looks identical. Keep initials small, inside the box or beside the page number, and do not let them cover any text. If the document has a date next to each signature, add it as text in the format the document already uses, such as 30/10/2026 or October 30, 2026, rather than switching formats halfway through. Our guide on adding initials to a PDF covers the details.

Should I sign first and email it, or send it for signature?

It depends on who else has to sign. If you are the only signer, or the other party has already signed and you are the last one, signing the PDF yourself and returning it is perfectly reasonable. If two or more people still need to sign, passing one PDF around by email gets messy: each person signs a slightly different copy, someone signs an old version, and at the end nobody can say which file is the real one.

In that case, upload the document once and add everyone as a signer. Each person gets their own link, you can set a signing order if one person must go first, and everyone receives the same completed PDF with a certificate of completion and a fingerprint that anyone can check on the verify page. Here is a simple rule: one signer, sign it yourself; two or more, send it.

A quick checklist before you send a signed PDF back

Open the downloaded file, not the one in the tool, and check four things. Every signature, initial and date box is filled. The signature sits on its line and does not cover printed text. The page count matches the original, so nothing was dropped. And the file name says what it is, for example "Lease 14 Elm St - signed 2026-10-30.pdf", not "document(3).pdf".

Then send that exact file. If you re-save it in another app, print it to PDF again or merge it with other files, you create a new version that may look identical but is a different file. Keep the unsigned original as well; if you spot a mistake later, it is much cleaner to sign a fresh copy than to edit a signed one.