A Guide to Electronically Sign (eSign) Documents

 

In the world of computers and the internet, everything is going digital and paperless. People are sending and receiving documents in electronic formats through the internet. In the trend of sending and receiving documents digitally, the electronic sign facility has also helped people in signing a document without needing to get hard copies to sign physically.

Electronically signing documents is helpful in many ways. For example, if you receive an urgent file or document on your email or chat app where you have to sign and send them immediately, then in that case, what you will do if you don’t have a printer to get printouts of the documents to sign. Here electronic sign helps best in signing documents in a few seconds without getting printouts. 

In this article, you will learn about digital tools that facilitate electronic singing. You will learn about both free and premium tools. Let’s see how you can use e-sign to sign a document.  

1.      Use this free e-sign software

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC  

Adobe Acrobat Reader DC is free software that works on both Windows and MacOS. As free software, it offers limited features. You can use this tool to sign documents. Below are the ways to use Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. 

Find the PDF that you want to sign and let it open in Acrobat Reader DC. Acrobat provides several ways to sign documents, but we will go through the one that is easy to use and quick. And the easy-to-use way is to hit on the pen icon that you will see on the upper right area of the screen. After that, you have to choose Add Signature. Now you will reach the signature screen and get three styles of doing signatures:

·        The first one you will get is Type, which allows you to type a signature through handwriting options.

·        The second one you will get is Draw, which lets you use a mouse to sign docs. 

·        The third one you will get is Image that enables you to upload an image of a signature. 

After choosing your preferred style and finishing the signing process, hit the Apply button found in the blue color. Now you can see your signature on the PDF as a running image. So, you have to pick the location where you want to sign on the PDF and click that location to place the signature. 

Use Preview on MacOS

If you are a Mac user, then here is good news for you. Do you know about Preview? Preview is a built-in app for Mac users supporting image and PDF viewing. In addition to it, you can also use this app to sign PDFs. Let’s see how you can use it to add your signature on a PDF. But before going ahead, make sure that you are using MacOS Big Sur. Find the PDF that you want to sign and open it through the Preview app. Access the Markup Toolbar and hit the Sign button. From now, you will have to use the onscreen guidelines to make a signature. Here you will get three ways for creating a signature:

·        Sign through trackpad: Select Trackpad and text. Then do your signature through trackpad and finger. After completing the signature, hit any key from the keyboard and then choose Done.   

·        Sign through Mac’s camera: First, choose Camera and then sign on a piece of white paper. After signing, take that piece of paper and show it in front of the camera and try to match it with the blue line shown on the screen. Once the signature correctly shows on display, hit the Done button. 

·        Sign through iPhone or iPad: Go through the option called Select Device and find the device to capture the signature. Then Sign using an iPhone or iPad and hit the Done button.    

After creating a signature successfully, hit the button called Sign and choose your signature. If you want, you can also change the size of the signature and its position so it can fit on the page. 

Online method: PDFescape

You can also try this online service to sign PDFs electronically. It also provides three signing techniques like Adobe Acrobat Reader DC. The three signing options include text, drawing, and uploading a signature image. Go to the PDFescape web editor to sign your PDF electronically. Keep in mind that it only supports files less than 10MB, and also the file should contain pages less than 100. 

·        Premium e-sign options

HelloSign

If you manage a business where you need to send e-sign documents daily, you should use a premium e-sign tool for hassle-free performance. And HelloSign is one of the best options to create electronic signatures for PDFs. Before going for the paid version, you can try its free version that only offers limited features. This service can also be integrated on Google Drive, and you can track all signed files here. You can take advantage of an unlimited e-sign facility at just $15 annually. 

DocuSign

The other ideal option as a premium one is DocuSign. If you are involved in signing multiple documents electronically, you can go with it. The free version is available on the name of DocuSign Free Edition that lets you sign unlimited files but doesn’t allow you to send Signature requests. To break the restriction, you will have to pay $10 annually to get some cool features, including sending five documents for e-sign monthly and support of 44 languages and more. You also get the DocuSign smartphone app.

These are some popular free and premium e-sign options. You can go with the one based on your needs. You can also try some apps to e-sign documents on your smartphones like SignEasy, DocuSign, SignNow, etc. 

Source: A Guide to Electronically Sign (eSign) Documents