How to Sign a PDF Without Printing or Scanning (Free)

For many everyday documents (a lease renewal, a school form, a quote) the other side only needs to see your signature on the page. Sign PDF puts a picture of your signature exactly where you need it.

Step by step

1. Open Sign PDF and choose the file.
2. Under Create a new signature, pick Draw, Type or Upload (a photo of your signature on white paper works well; see how to get a clean result from a photo).
3. Press Use signature, then drag it into place and resize it. Use Add to this page or All pages for initials on every page.
4. Apply and download.

What is in the signed file

The signature is added as an image (524 × 113 px in our test) drawn on the page. It is not a cryptographic digital signature: the file has no signature field and nothing proves who signed it or that it was not changed afterwards. The form’s three fields were still present and editable after signing, so if you are signing a filled form, flatten it afterwards so the values cannot be changed under your signature.

If the recipient requires a certified digital signature (common for some legal, tax or government filings), use the system they specify.

Initials on every page

Some contracts ask for initials on every page. On 28 October 2026 we tested this on the live site with our fictional 12-page report: Type tab, name “Rina Example”, Use signature, then All pages.

• Every one of the 12 pages received the signature image. The source file was 9.9 KB and the signed file was 20 KB.
• Watch page 1. Use signature had already placed one copy on the page we were viewing, so after All pages page 1 had two copies. Before applying, look at the current page and delete the extra one.
• The report’s own text was untouched: pdftotext extracted exactly the same amount of text before and after signing, and the typed name did not appear as text, because a typed signature is drawn as an image.
• All 12 bookmarks were still present.

Which signature type to use

Option	Good for	Keep in mind
Type	Quick, tidy initials or a name	Looks like a font, not handwriting
Draw	A handwritten look without a scanner	Easier with a touchscreen or stylus than a mouse
Upload	Your real signature	Use a photo on plain white paper; see our signature photo tests

Before you send a signed PDF

• Zoom in on each signature to check it is not covering printed text.
• Keep an unsigned copy, so you can redo the signing if the position is wrong.
• If the document has form fields, flatten it after signing.

How we tested this

Date	22 October 2026
Environment	Google Chrome 155 (headless) on Linux x86_64, desktop viewport 1280×900, PDFroo build of 22 October 2026
Test file	Fictional 1-page form with 3 filled fields
Settings	Type tab, name “Rina Example”, placed on page 1
Results	1 image 524 × 113 px on page 1; 3 form fields remaining; no /Sig field
Network	The browser made no request that carried the file: the only requests during processing were same-origin page prefetches and local blob: URLs.
Re-test	28 October 2026 on the live site: typed signature on All pages of a 12-page report (signature image on all 12 pages, a second copy on page 1 from Use signature, text and 12 bookmarks unchanged, 9.9 KB → 20 KB)

During these runs the only POST requests went to the site’s analytics endpoints (Cloudflare Web Analytics and Google Analytics); no request went to a PDFroo processing server, and the result was produced in the browser.

We checked every output with pypdf, pdfinfo and pdftotext, and recorded every network request the page made while the file was processed. See our tool testing methodology.