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Add a signature to a PDF without uploading it

Place a scan or photograph of your handwritten signature on any page, size it, and download the signed file. Your signature image and your document are both read straight from your own disk — neither is ever sent anywhere.

Add a signature — free

No account. No upload. Free while in beta.

A signature-sized image placed on a document page and selected, with its transform handles visible beside the tool controls.

Your signature is the last thing you should upload

Most tools that put a signature on a PDF ask you to upload two things: the document and an image of your handwritten signature. That image is reusable by anyone who holds it. It is not a password you can change, and you cannot revoke it.

This tool has no upload step. Your browser reads both files from your own disk, draws one onto the other, and hands you the result through the normal download mechanism. Nothing is transmitted, so there is no copy of your signature on any server — including ours — and nothing to ask anyone to delete later.

You can check rather than take our word for it: open your browser’s developer tools, watch the Network tab, and sign a document. Nothing goes out. Disconnect from the network after the page has loaded and it still works.

How this works

A visual signature, not a digital one

This draws an image on a page. It is worth being precise about what that is and is not, because the two are routinely conflated and the difference occasionally matters a great deal.

A digital signature in the cryptographic sense binds a document to a certificate. It proves who applied it and proves the file has not been altered since, and a PDF reader can verify both. A picture of a signature proves neither. It can be copied off the page by anyone who receives it, and it says nothing about whether the document changed afterwards.

For a great many documents — an internal approval, a form that will be printed, a delivery note, a letter — a visual signature is exactly what is wanted and what everyone expects. If you need an audit trail, identity verification, or a qualified electronic signature under eIDAS or a comparable regime, use a service built for that. This is not one, and no amount of image placement makes it one.

Getting a signature image

If you do not already have one, five minutes with a pen and a phone is enough.

Sign a blank sheet in dark ink — black or dark blue, and larger than you would normally sign. Detail is easier to remove than to add.
Photograph or scan it in even light, square to the page. A JPG straight from a phone is fine; a scan at 300 dpi or better beats a photograph if you have the option.
Crop tightly to the signature itself, with a little margin.
Remove the background if you can, and save as PNG. This is the step that makes the difference: a transparent PNG sits on the page as ink, while a JPEG brings a rectangle of off-white paper with it that will not match the document underneath.

Keep the file somewhere sensible and treat it as you would a physical signature stamp. It is reusable by whoever has it.

An image placed on a document page and selected, showing its transform handles and the width, angle and opacity controls.

Placing it on the page

Drop the image onto the tool or pick it from a file dialog, then put it where it belongs.

Drag to move it, corner handles to resize, a handle above to rotate
The aspect ratio is locked while resizing, so a signature cannot come out squashed — you set the width and the height follows
Reduce the opacity slightly if a hard-edged scan looks pasted on
Or type exact numbers, if the signature has to land in the same place on every copy of a form you produce

Just the page that needs signing

Most signatures belong on one page, not all of them — the last page of a contract, the bottom of a form. The page selection defaults to every page, so this is the one setting worth changing deliberately.

This page only puts it on whichever page you are looking at
A custom range like 7, or 2, 7 for a document that needs initialling as well as signing

The preview scrolls the whole document, so you can see which pages carry the signature before you save.

FAQ

Signing a PDF

Is my signature uploaded anywhere?

No. The signature image and the PDF are both opened by your browser and stay on your device. There is no upload step in this tool, so there is no copy of either on any server.

Is this a legally binding electronic signature?

It places a picture of your signature on the page. Whether that is legally sufficient depends on the document and your jurisdiction — for many everyday purposes it is, and for anything requiring a qualified electronic signature it is not. See the section above.

What image format should I use?

A PNG with a transparent background gives the best result, because the paper behind your signature does not come with it. PNG and JPEG are used as they are; other formats your browser can display are converted to PNG automatically.

How do I get a signature image?

Sign a blank sheet in dark ink, photograph or scan it, crop to the signature, and remove the background if you can. The steps are described above.

Can I put the signature on one page only?

Yes. Set the page selection to the current page, or type a specific page number. That is the normal case for a signature.

Will my signature be stretched?

No. The aspect ratio is locked while you resize — you set the width and the height follows.

Can I add two signatures?

One image at a time per document. To add a second, save the result and open the downloaded file again.

Sign your first document

Free while in beta. No account, no upload.

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