Sign PDF Online — A Practical Guide for 2026

GN PDF · February 5, 2026 · 8 min read · Signatures· Tutorial

Three ways to sign — pick the right one for the job

1. Draw with your mouse, finger, or stylus

Best for: contracts where the recipient is a human and expects to see a real-looking signature.

Open the editor and click the Sign tool. The Draw tab gives you a 500×200 canvas. Pick an ink colour (we default to near-black; blue is the right choice for most contracts; some HR forms expect green or red — we ship six presets plus a custom picker). Use the pen-size slider if your default scribble feels too thin.

Pro tip: Slow down when you draw. The fastest signatures look like a child's. Use roughly 2.5–3 px pen size and trace at half your normal speed; the result reads as a confident, adult signature.

2. Type your name in cursive

Best for: low-stakes initials and one-click sign-offs.

The Type tab generates your name in a Brush Script-style cursive font, in your chosen ink colour. It is obvious to a recipient that this is a typed signature, but it's universally accepted for non-binding contexts (timesheets, internal approvals, RSVP slips). For anything legally binding, draw or upload.

3. Upload a photo of your handwritten signature

Best for: signing many documents in a single session with a consistent, recognisable signature.

Sign on a clean white sheet with a black pen. Photograph it in good light. Upload via the Upload tab. Tick "Remove background from signature" (default on) — the editor removes white pixels so only your ink remains, against transparency. Save it to the Image Library and you'll be able to drop it onto any future PDF with one click.

Once you have the signature in the page

Resize it by dragging a corner handle. Aim for ~3 cm wide on an A4 page.
Position it slightly below the printed signature line, not on top of it.
If the signature looks too dark/solid against a coloured page, drop the opacity to ~0.9 in the Properties panel for a more natural look.
Don't centre your signature; sign slightly to the left of the line.

Adding a date next to the signature

Click anywhere near the signature line. The editor places a blank textbox. Type today's date in the convention your document uses (e.g. 15 February 2026). Use the same font as the printed text for cohesion — pick "Plus Jakarta Sans" or "Inter" from the Font Family dropdown.

Multi-page sign-off

Many contracts ask you to initial every page and sign the last one. After you add your full signature on page N, switch to a smaller textbox with just your initials (say "JD") and copy-paste it (Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V) onto every other page — drag each to the same spot relative to the page footer.

Is this legally binding?

A "wet" handwritten signature is the gold standard, but most jurisdictions accept electronic signatures under specific laws (UETA / ESIGN in the US, eIDAS in the EU, the IT Act in India). Whether this specific signature is binding depends on the context, the parties' agreement, and the level of verification needed. For high-stakes contracts (real estate, six-figure deals), use a qualified eSignature provider with audit trails — DocuSign, Adobe Sign, Dropbox Sign — not a free editor. For everything else (RSVPs, expense forms, internal docs, NDAs), GN PDF's flow is perfectly adequate.

Where the file lives

Throughout this whole process, your PDF and your signature image stay inside your browser. There is no upload, no temporary copy in our infrastructure, no email forwarded to "verify" anything. When you close the tab, the file is gone from everywhere except your downloads folder.