Sign a PDF with your own mark

To sign a PDF, open it in Fill & sign, choose a line or an empty place, and draw, type or upload your own signature or initials. There, CECO PDF places only a mark you confirm is yours, and records where it went and when. It refuses a place that already holds ink, and a PDF already digitally signed.

Sign a PDF now — it opens the document workspace in Fill & sign, with nothing to install.

• What it does: places your own drawn, typed or uploaded signature or initials on a signature line or an empty part of the page, at its own proportions.
• The check: the page is compared with yours at 300 dots per inch, and nothing outside the place you chose may change.
• The price: saving a signed copy counts as one correction, however many marks it holds. Downloading the result is priced as a corrected document is.

Your PDF and each signed copy are kept with your documents under your account, and deleted after 90 days or whenever you delete them. Until you save, your mark stays in the page's memory, never in your browser's storage; once it is in the PDF, its record keeps where it went and a fingerprint of it, never the mark itself. The privacy notice says what is kept, and why.

How to sign a PDF with your own signature

1. Open the PDF. Press the button above and choose the PDF you are signing. Fill & sign outlines the signature lines and fields it finds, with the other places to write.
2. Choose where your mark goes. Click the signature line or field, or drag a box over an empty part of the page and choose “Signature or own initials”. The mark fits inside the box at its own proportions, never stretched, and on a line it sits above the rule, not on it.
3. Make your mark. Choose “Type my own name or initials”, “Draw my own mark” or “Upload my own mark”, as the next section describes.
4. Confirm it is yours. Tick “This is my own signature or initials.” Nothing is placed without it, and the record notes that you confirmed it.
5. Save a finished copy. “Review answers” opens “Check your answers”, which lists your mark, as your typed name or as your drawn or uploaded mark, with any other answers. A mark goes on a finished copy only, never on a fillable one, and the page is compared with yours before the copy is saved.
6. Download the signed copy; its record says where your mark went, and when.

Draw, type or upload your own mark

• Draw it with a mouse, a finger or a pen; “Clear drawing” starts again. Your strokes are drawn into the mark at 600 dots per inch, as you made them.
• Type it, and your name or initials are set in a standard italic typeface, Times Italic. Nothing here turns a name into handwriting. A letter the typeface does not have is refused: draw or upload your mark instead.
• Upload it as a PNG or JPEG of your own signature, up to 2 MB and 4 million pixels. A PNG with a see-through background places only its ink; a picture with a solid background, as every JPEG has, places that too, and it shows on a page that is not pure white.

What you can and cannot do here

Place only your own signature or initials, on documents you are entitled to sign. Signing with somebody else's signature is forgery: the terms forbid using the service to forge or falsify a document, and accounts doing so are closed. Identity documents are refused when they are uploaded.

Questions people ask

Can I fill in a form and sign it in one go?

Yes. In Fill & sign, type the form's answers and place your mark, check them together in “Check your answers”, and save one finished copy: an order form filled in and signed counts as one correction. A form that others will fill in later is a fillable copy, which takes no marks; Fill PDF says more.

Can I sign a scanned PDF?

Yes, on blank paper. The place is checked for ink in the scan's own pixels first, and refused if it holds any. Scanned paper is seldom pure white, so upload a PNG with a see-through background, or draw or type your mark: a solid background shows as a pale box.

Can I change or move a signature that is already on the PDF?

No. A place that already holds ink, a filled field, a comment or a signature is refused, whoever made it: whose mark it is cannot be told from its pixels, so Fill & sign never writes over one. If it is a mark you placed here yourself in your latest save, undo that save: undo takes back everything the save wrote, and counts as half a correction against the day's allowance. Then place your mark again.

Can I sign a PDF that is already digitally signed?

No. A PDF that already carries a digital signature is refused for signing, so a mark cannot quietly change a file somebody signed. Editing a signed PDF breaks the signature; correct it, then sign it again. Here, that means signing a fresh copy that carries no digital signature yet.

Is it a digital signature?

No. It is a picture of your own signature, placed on the page as ink is. A digital signature is something else: a seal made with a certificate over the file's contents, which PDF readers check. CECO PDF adds none to your PDF.

Is a signature placed here legally binding?

That depends on the document, the law that applies to it and whoever receives it, and this page gives no legal advice. What CECO PDF did is this: it placed a picture of a signature you confirmed was yours, where you put it, and recorded where and when. It does not check who you are, and the mark is not a certificate-based digital signature.

Can I send the PDF to someone else to sign?

Not from here: asking other people to sign is not offered. Download your signed copy and send it yourself; each person who signs places their own mark, on their own copy.

What does the record say about my signature?

Where your mark went on the page and when; how it was made, drawn, typed or uploaded; that you confirmed it was yours; and a fingerprint of it, a hash. The record travels inside the PDF. Your account's trail notes how many marks the save placed, and where each answer and mark it wrote went, never what they say. Neither keeps a copy of the mark, an answer or your name.

Why do the edges of my mark look sharp?

It is placed as a stencil: each dot of it is ink or page, with nothing half see-through between. A soft edge was tried, and it changed thousands of pixels outside the mark, which the check refuses. Typed and drawn marks are made at 600 dots per inch, so the edge is fine, if firmer than ink on paper.

Is signing a PDF free?

Saving a signed copy counts as one correction, however many marks it holds, once the mark is placed, even if the check then fails; the free plan allows 10 corrections a day. Signed in, your first corrected download each day costs nothing; after it, one takes a credit or a plan. What each plan costs is on the pricing page.

Related tools

• Fill PDF, to fill in the form's other fields
• Compare PDF, to see what differs between the copy you were sent and the one you sign
• Protect PDF, to give the signed copy a password
• Merge PDF, to join the signed pages to the rest
• Compress PDF, when the signed copy is too large to send