Podpis PDF

Sign a PDF online — without uploading it

This free sign PDF tool lets you add your signature to a document right in your browser. Drop in a PDF, create your signature by drawing, typing, or uploading it, then drag it onto the exact spot on the page and download the signed file. There's no account, no email, and no watermark.

The thing that sets it apart is privacy. Tools like Adobe Acrobat, Smallpdf, and iLovePDF upload your document to their servers to sign it. Here, everything runs locally — your contract, offer letter, or ID is never uploaded. That is exactly the reassurance you want before you e-sign anything confidential.

How to sign a PDF in three steps

First, open your PDF — drag it onto the drop zone or click to browse. It renders instantly so you can flip through the pages. Second, build your signature using the Draw, Type, or Upload tab. Third, click 'Place on page', drag the signature onto the signature line, and scale it with the size slider until it fits.

When the signature and any other fields are positioned, hit Download signed PDF. The tool flattens everything into the document and saves a new signed.pdf to your device, leaving the original untouched.

Draw, type, or upload your signature

There are three ways to add a signature to a PDF. Draw it freehand on the pad with a mouse, trackpad, or finger — a phone or tablet gives the most natural curve. Type your name and have it rendered in a handwriting-style font, with a choice of styles and ink color. Or upload a photo or scan of your real handwritten signature; a transparent PNG sits cleanly over the page.

Made a signature you'll use again? Click Save and it's stored locally in your browser as a reusable thumbnail, so you never have to re-draw it on the next document.

Fill and sign: text, dates, and checkmarks

Real paperwork needs more than a signature. The fill and sign tools let you drop text, today's date, and check marks anywhere on the page — perfect for flat forms that have no fillable fields. Type a name, initials, or a value like 'Approved', click to place it, then drag it into the right box.

Every item — signatures, text, and dates — can be moved, resized, and deleted independently, and you can add as many as you need across multiple pages before downloading the finished document.

Sign a PDF on your phone

Because the tool is just a web page, it works the same on a phone. Open it in Safari on your iPhone or Chrome on Android, choose your PDF, and sign with your finger on the Draw pad — touch input produces the most authentic signature. Drag it into place, resize, and tap download to save the signed PDF to your Files or Downloads.

There is no app to install and nothing to log into, which is why 'how to sign a PDF on iPhone' is so much simpler here than wrestling with the Markup tool in Apple Files.

How this compares to Adobe, DocuSign, and Smallpdf

Most free PDF signing options online hit you with friction the moment you arrive. Adobe Acrobat technically has a free tier, but signing is capped at one document per month and the interface pushes you toward a $23/month subscription. DocuSign's free plan allows only three sends per month and requires your recipient to also have an account for some workflows. Smallpdf lets you complete two tasks per day before locking you behind a Pro plan. iLovePDF is free but uploads every document to their cloud servers, which is a real concern for contracts, NDAs, or any document with personal information.

This tool has none of those limits. Your PDF opens locally, the signing happens in your browser, and the download is instant. There is no server, no upload cap, no watermark, and no monthly quota. Bookmark it and it works the same next month — no subscription prompt, no countdown.

Electronic signature vs digital signature

It's worth being clear and honest about what this tool does. It creates an electronic signature — a visible mark (drawn, typed, or uploaded) stamped onto the page to show your intent to sign. In the US, the ESIGN Act and UETA make electronic signatures legally valid for most everyday agreements, and the EU's eIDAS regulation recognizes them too.

It is not a certificate-based digital signature, which uses cryptography (PKI) to seal a document and prove it hasn't been altered. For documents that legally require certificate-based signing — or formal notarization — use a dedicated qualified e-signature provider. For the contracts, letters, and forms most people sign every day, a clear visible signature is what's expected.

Legal frameworks: ESIGN, UETA, and eIDAS

Electronic signatures carry real legal weight in most jurisdictions because lawmakers built specific frameworks to recognize them. In the United States, the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN Act, 2000) established at the federal level that a contract or record cannot be denied legal effect solely because it bears an electronic signature. Complementing it, the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) — adopted by 49 states — applies the same principle to state-level transactions, covering everything from everyday service agreements to real estate contracts where the parties agree to transact electronically.

The European Union took a tiered approach through the eIDAS Regulation (Electronic Identification, Authentication and Trust Services, 2016). eIDAS defines three levels of electronic signature. A Simple Electronic Signature (SES) is the most basic — any data in electronic form attached to or logically associated with other data, such as typing your name at the bottom of an email. An Advanced Electronic Signature (AES) must be uniquely linked to the signatory, capable of identifying them, created using data under their sole control, and linked to the signed data so that any subsequent change is detectable. At the top sits the Qualified Electronic Signature (QES), which requires a qualified certificate issued by an EU-accredited Trust Service Provider and a secure signature creation device; under eIDAS, a QES carries the same legal effect as a handwritten signature in all EU member states — making it the gold standard for high-value contracts across Europe.

For the vast majority of everyday agreements — employment contracts, NDAs, tenancy agreements, purchase orders, and consent forms — a Simple or Advanced Electronic Signature is accepted under these frameworks. The practical takeaway: signing with this tool is legally recognised in most commercial contexts in the US and EU, provided the parties have agreed to transact electronically and the document type is not specifically excluded by law.

What cannot be signed electronically

Both the ESIGN Act and UETA carve out categories where electronic signatures are not sufficient, and practitioners need to know these limits. In most US jurisdictions, wills, codicils, and testamentary trusts must still be signed and witnessed in person with wet ink — courts have historically been conservative about digital execution of estate documents, though a small number of states have begun recognising electronic wills under specific conditions. Adoption and certain family-law filings, divorce decrees, and documents that terminate or modify child-support obligations are frequently excluded at the state level. Notices of cancellation of utilities, home loans, or life insurance are specifically called out in the ESIGN Act as requiring paper delivery.

Court filings present a patchwork: many federal courts accept e-signatures through their CM/ECF systems, but some state courts still require original signatures on certain pleadings or affidavits. Real-property deeds and mortgage instruments vary by state — while many jurisdictions now permit electronic recording of deeds (under URPERA, the Uniform Real Property Electronic Recording Act), others still require a notarized wet-ink signature. Under the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), Articles governing negotiable instruments such as promissory notes have specific rules that may require additional steps beyond a simple electronic signature.

The EU's eIDAS regulation similarly restricts where a Simple Electronic Signature suffices: high-value financial instruments and certain regulated filings may demand AES or QES. The underlying principle across all these exclusions is the same — when the stakes are high, the identity of the signer difficult to verify later, or the document type is prescribed by older statute, lawmakers have chosen to retain traditional formalities. For everything else — the employment agreements, sales contracts, purchase orders, and routine consents that make up the bulk of daily signing — electronic signatures are both legal and practical.

How cryptographic digital signatures work

A digital signature is not a stylistic flourish — it is a mathematical proof. When you digitally sign a PDF with certificate-based software, the application computes a cryptographic hash of the document's bytes (a fixed-length fingerprint that changes entirely if even a single byte changes). That hash is then encrypted with the signer's private key, producing the digital signature, which is embedded in the PDF along with the signer's X.509 certificate. Anyone who later opens the file can use the corresponding public key (retrieved from the certificate) to decrypt the hash and re-compute it from the file's current bytes. If the two hashes match, the document is intact and the signature is genuine. If even one byte differs — a comma swapped for a period, a figure changed — the hashes diverge and the signature shows as invalid.

This mechanism, built on Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), delivers three security properties simultaneously: authentication (the signature came from whoever controls that private key), integrity (the content hasn't changed since signing), and non-repudiation (the signer cannot later credibly deny having signed, because only they held the private key). Enterprise e-signature platforms like DocuSign and Adobe Acrobat Sign embed signing certificates from trusted Certificate Authorities (CAs) so that readers without any relationship to the platform can still verify the signature chain through their operating system's trusted root store.

PDFs also distinguish between approval signatures — where multiple signers can each add their own certified signature sequentially, each one covering all prior content — and a certification signature, which is the first signature on a document and can set Modification Detection and Prevention (MDP) permissions. MDP level 1 locks the document entirely (no changes allowed after signing), level 2 permits only form filling and additional digital signatures, and level 3 also allows annotations. Understanding these distinctions matters when you are the party who issues a document for others to sign: the MDP level you choose determines what your signers can do without breaking your certification.

E-signature platforms vs client-side signing tools

Dedicated e-signature platforms such as DocuSign (the global market leader, used in millions of real-estate closings and enterprise contracts), Adobe Acrobat Sign, PandaDoc, HelloSign (now part of Dropbox), and SignWell offer a complete workflow that goes well beyond placing a mark on a page. When a document passes through one of these platforms, it receives a timestamped audit trail — every view, click, and signature is logged with the signer's IP address, email address, and browser fingerprint. The signature itself is backed by a certificate from the platform's CA, the signing event is recorded in an immutable evidence envelope, and the signed document can be independently verified by any PDF reader that trusts the CA chain.

That infrastructure is essential for high-stakes transactions: a commercial lease, a Series A term sheet, a healthcare consent form governed by HIPAA. The audit trail means that if a dispute arises years later, the platform can produce a court-admissible certificate of completion showing exactly who signed, when, and from which device. Identity verification add-ons — SMS one-time passwords, government ID checks, knowledge-based authentication — further strengthen the evidentiary record.

A client-side signing tool like this one occupies a different point on the spectrum. Because no document is uploaded and no server is involved, there is no audit trail, no timestamp authority, and no identity attestation beyond the mark itself. That is an entirely reasonable trade-off for the large class of documents where the parties already know and trust each other — an offer letter between employer and candidate, a landlord sending a tenancy addendum to a known tenant, an individual signing their own consent form for a gym membership. For those use cases, the absence of a server means the absence of a data breach risk, faster turnaround, and no per-document cost. The right tool depends on the document: use a platform when the authenticity chain needs an external record; use a client-side tool when privacy and convenience outweigh the need for a third-party audit trail.