Sign or write on a PDF

When you need this

A form arrives as a PDF and needs your signature by this evening. The normal route is print, sign, scan — three steps, a printer you do not have, and a scan that comes back crooked and huge. You can put the signature straight onto the file instead, and the result is cleaner than a scan.

How to use it

1. Open the PDF and go to the page you need.
2. Tap where something should go, then place text, your signature or an image there.
3. Move it until it sits properly, then save.

What it does and does not do

• Typed text is real text. It can be searched and copied in the finished file, which matters for forms that get read by a machine.
• A good signature needs a good source. Sign on plain white paper with a dark pen, photograph it flat in daylight, and run it through turn a photo of my signature into a clean image first. The result sits on the page without a grey box around it.
• This is not a legally certified e-signature. It is the same thing as signing a printout and scanning it, which is what most offices, schools and landlords in Ghana accept. If you are told you need a certified or digital signature with a certificate, this is not that.
• It can cover things up as well as add them. Placing a white box over a line is a common way to redact — but anyone can move it. To remove something properly, see below.

If something goes wrong

• You are hiding a card or ID number. Do not cover it with a box. Use crop, watermark or blur part of a photo, which destroys the pixels rather than hiding them.
• The signature has a grey or white block around it. The photograph was taken on a shadowed or off-white page. Redo it with the signature tool.
• The form will not let you tap the fields. Some PDFs have real form fields and some are flat pictures of a form. Either way you can place text on top; it does not have to go in the box.
• The saved file is large. Photographs added to a page add weight. Make my PDF smaller afterwards.