PDF Signature
PDF Signature
Drag and drop your PDF here, or click to browse
PDF files only · Max 100 MB · Files stay in your browser
Signature Placement
Your Signed PDF Will Appear Here
Upload a PDF, create your signature using the draw, type, or upload tab, choose which pages to sign, then click Sign & Download.
Draw, type, or upload your signature and apply it to any PDF — all in your browser
Signing a PDF document used to mean printing a page, scrawling your name in ink, scanning it back, and hoping the resolution survived the round trip. Today, electronic signatures are legally recognized in most countries — and with the right tool, you can sign any PDF in seconds without installing software, creating an account, or sending your files to a stranger's server. Our PDF Signature tool handles the entire process directly in your browser. The PDF you choose never leaves your device. No file upload happens. No copy lives on our servers. Once you close the tab, there is no trace — because the work was done entirely with JavaScript and the pdf-lib library running locally on your machine. You have three ways to create your signature. The Draw mode gives you a freehand canvas where you can write with a mouse, trackpad, stylus, or finger on a touchscreen — just like signing paper. You choose the ink color (black, blue, or red) and the pen thickness before you draw. When you are happy with the result, the canvas exports your stroke as a transparent PNG that gets embedded cleanly into the PDF. The Type mode is ideal when you want a consistent, polished look. Enter your name and choose from a selection of popular handwriting-style fonts — Dancing Script, Caveat, Pacifico, or Sacramento — each giving a distinct personality to the signature. The ink color selector applies here too, so you can match corporate brand requirements or personal preference. The typed text is rendered to an offscreen canvas and exported as a PNG, ensuring the font renders crisply at any size inside the document. The Upload mode lets you import an existing signature image you have already scanned or photographed. PNG and JPEG files are both supported. If you have a signature on a white background, consider using a PNG with a transparent background for the cleanest result — although a white-background JPEG will also work fine in most documents. Once your signature is created, you control exactly where it appears. Horizontal and vertical position sliders let you place the signature anywhere on the page using percentage-based coordinates, making it easy to target the signature line near the bottom of a contract or the date field at the top of a form. Width and height controls let you scale the signature up or down to fit the space available. You decide which pages receive the signature: this page only, every page in the document, or a custom range you specify — for example, pages 1, 3, and 5-8. This flexibility covers everything from a single-page agreement to a multi-section contract where your initials need to appear on every page. An optional date stamp embeds today's date in written-out form directly below the signature, so you do not need to type the date separately. The stamp uses the same client-side canvas approach — no external services involved. When you click Sign and Download, the tool uses pdf-lib to load your original PDF, embed the signature image onto the selected pages at the correct coordinates, and produce a new PDF file ready to save. The download happens instantly through your browser's normal file-save dialog. The signed document is indistinguishable from one produced by professional desktop software. Electronic signatures created by drawing, typing, or uploading an image are recognized under the ESIGN Act in the United States, eIDAS in the European Union, and similar legislation in most other jurisdictions for most everyday purposes — employment contracts, rental agreements, vendor agreements, and consent forms. For transactions requiring a qualified digital signature with a cryptographic certificate and audit trail, you would need a certified signing service (a V2 feature we plan to add). Because everything runs locally, this tool works offline after the page has loaded. It handles PDF files up to about 100 MB reliably — larger than most documents you will ever need to sign. If your PDF is unusual in structure and the tool cannot read it, a clear error message will tell you what went wrong.
Understanding PDF Electronic Signatures
What Is an Electronic Signature?
An electronic signature is any digital method used to indicate a person's intent to agree to the contents of a document. The term covers a wide spectrum — from a scanned handwritten signature pasted as an image, to a cryptographically secure digital certificate that proves the signer's identity beyond doubt. For the vast majority of everyday business purposes, a clear image of your handwritten signature placed on a PDF page satisfies the legal standard for an electronic signature. Our tool creates this type of signature: a PNG image of your drawn, typed, or uploaded signature embedded into the PDF using pdf-lib. This approach is widely accepted for employment contracts, rental agreements, service agreements, and consent forms across most of the world. It does not produce a cryptographic signature with a verifiable audit trail — that category of signature requires a dedicated signing platform with identity verification infrastructure.
How the Signature Is Embedded
The signing process uses two browser technologies working together. First, an HTML5 canvas element captures your drawn strokes in real time using Pointer Events, which work equally well with a mouse, stylus, or finger. The canvas stores the rendered strokes in memory and exports them as a PNG data URL using the toDataURL API. For typed signatures, the selected font is rendered at high size onto an offscreen canvas before export. For uploaded images, the file is read directly as a data URL using the FileReader API. Once you have a PNG data URL representing your signature, the pdf-lib library loads your original PDF as an ArrayBuffer, embeds the PNG image into the document, and draws it onto each target page at the coordinates you specified. The PDF coordinate system places the origin at the bottom-left corner of the page, opposite to the browser convention of top-left, so the tool converts your percentage-based position inputs automatically. The finished document is serialized back to bytes and offered as a download via a Blob URL.
Why Client-Side Processing Matters
When you use a server-based PDF signing service, your document travels across the internet to someone else's computer, where it is processed and sent back. Most reputable services delete files quickly, but the file did leave your device and did exist on infrastructure you do not control — even briefly. For documents containing personal health information, financial data, legal agreements, or proprietary business content, that exposure may be unacceptable. Client-side processing eliminates this risk entirely. Your PDF never leaves your browser tab. The pdf-lib library, loaded once as JavaScript, performs all reading, modification, and writing operations inside your machine's memory. There is no network request carrying your document. This makes client-side PDF signing the most private approach available, and it also works offline once the page has loaded. Our approach follows the same model used by PDF Lab and PDFGear, recognized as the gold standard for privacy-first PDF tools.
Limitations to Keep in Mind
This tool produces an image-based electronic signature, not a cryptographic digital signature. That distinction matters in regulated industries or high-stakes transactions where legal non-repudiation and identity verification are required. For those cases — qualified electronic signatures under eIDAS, DocuSign-style witnessed signatures, or signatures requiring a certificate authority — you need a purpose-built signing platform. Additionally, if your PDF is password-protected or encrypted, pdf-lib will not be able to load it without the password. Very large PDFs above 100 MB may be slow to process or may exhaust browser memory on lower-end devices. PDFs created by some older tools may use structures that pdf-lib cannot parse; in those cases you will see an error message. Finally, the date stamp inserted by this tool is a plain-text image, not a cryptographically verified timestamp — it records the local clock time on your device and carries no external verification.
How to Sign a PDF
Upload Your PDF
Click the upload area or drag your PDF onto it. The file opens instantly in your browser — nothing is sent to a server. You will see the page count displayed once the PDF is loaded.
Create Your Signature
Choose the Draw tab to hand-write your signature with a mouse or touchscreen, the Type tab to render your name in a handwriting font, or the Upload tab to import an existing signature image. Pick your ink color and adjust the thickness if needed.
Position and Choose Pages
Use the horizontal and vertical sliders to place the signature where it should appear on the page — typically the bottom-right area of a contract. Set the width and height to fit the signature line. Then choose whether to apply it to this page only, all pages, or a custom range such as '1, 3, 5-8'.
Sign and Download
Click Sign & Download. The tool embeds your signature into the PDF entirely in your browser, then immediately offers the finished file as a download. The signed PDF is ready to share, email, or archive.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is this PDF signature legally valid?
For most everyday purposes — employment contracts, rental agreements, vendor agreements, and consent forms — an image-based electronic signature is legally valid. In the United States, the ESIGN Act of 2000 recognizes electronic signatures for most commercial and consumer transactions. The European Union's eIDAS regulation accepts simple electronic signatures for many purposes. However, certain regulated industries and high-value transactions may require a qualified electronic signature backed by a cryptographic certificate and identity verification. If you are unsure, consult a legal professional in your jurisdiction. Our tool is appropriate for the vast majority of routine business signing needs.
Does my PDF file get uploaded to your servers?
No. Your PDF file never leaves your device. All processing happens inside your browser using the pdf-lib JavaScript library, which runs locally without any network requests. The file exists only in your browser's memory while you work with it and is discarded as soon as you close the tab or navigate away. We have no access to your documents at any point. This client-side approach is the same technology used by privacy-first tools like PDFGear and PDF Lab, and it is the most secure way to handle sensitive documents online.
What is the difference between the three signature modes?
Draw mode captures your actual handwriting on a canvas using your mouse, touchpad, stylus, or finger — producing the most personal and natural-looking result. Type mode renders your name using a handwriting-style font like Dancing Script or Caveat, giving a clean, consistent appearance every time — ideal for business documents where reproducibility matters. Upload mode lets you import a PNG or JPEG image of your existing signature, which is useful if you have already scanned your handwritten signature at high resolution and want to reuse it across many documents.
Can I sign multiple pages or every page at once?
Yes. After creating your signature, use the Apply Signature To selector to choose This Page, All Pages, or Custom Range. The Custom Range option accepts comma-separated page numbers and hyphenated ranges — for example, '1, 3-5, 8' will apply your signature to pages 1, 3, 4, 5, and 8. All Pages is useful for documents where initials or a watermark-style signature should appear on every sheet. The signature image and date stamp (if enabled) are placed at the same position and size on every targeted page.
Why can't I sign my PDF? It shows an error.
The most common reason is that the PDF is password-protected or encrypted. pdf-lib cannot modify a locked document without the password. Some PDFs created by very old software or non-standard tools may also use structures that pdf-lib cannot parse. If you receive a processing error, try opening the PDF in Adobe Acrobat Reader or your system's PDF viewer first to confirm it is not damaged or locked. Files larger than 100 MB may exceed available browser memory on some devices — try reducing the file size or using a desktop PDF tool for very large documents.
What does the date stamp option add?
When you enable Add today's date below signature, the tool generates a text image showing today's date in long form — for example, April 6, 2026 — and places it directly below your signature on each signed page. The date reflects your device's local clock. This is a visual addition only — it is not a cryptographic timestamp and carries no external verification. For documents where the signing date needs to be independently verifiable, you would need a timestamping service or a qualified digital signature platform. For routine agreements, the visual date stamp is a convenient way to record when the document was signed without extra steps.