Adding your signature and initials in PDF by Zaweba

Signing a document used to mean a printer, a pen and a scanner. Now most of the documents that need a signature arrive as PDFs, and most of them can be signed on screen. PDF by Zaweba does it with the Signature and Initials tools in Fill and sign, offline, with your signature kept on your own PC.

Setting up your signature

The first time you use the Signature tool, a window asks you to make one. There are three ways.

Type it, and it is shown in a handwriting font from Windows. This is the quickest, and it looks neat and consistent every time.

Draw it with the mouse or a pen. On a touchscreen laptop or a tablet with a stylus, this gives a signature that looks like your own. With a mouse it takes a little practice. Try a few times and keep the one you are happiest with.

Or choose a picture of it. Sign a sheet of white paper, photograph or scan it, and pick the image. The picture is shrunk to 900 pixels across, plenty for a signature on a page, and its transparency is kept. If you prepare the picture with a transparent background, the signature sits over the page's lines like ink rather than in a white box.

Initials work the same way and are set up alongside, for documents that ask you to initial each page or each change.

Placing it

Once set up, choose Signature or Initials and click on the page where it should go. You can place it on any page, as many times as the document needs. Zoom in on the signature line first so you can put it exactly where it belongs; a signature floating above the line or crossing the printed text looks careless.

Like the other Fill and sign items, a placed signature is a separate item you can move or remove until the document is flattened. Saving flattens items by default, which makes the signature part of the page.

Kept on this PC

Your signature is kept on this PC only. It isn't uploaded anywhere or tied to an account, because the app has no account and works offline. That is a sensible place for something as personal as a signature.

It also means that on another computer you will need to set it up again. And on a shared PC, think about who else uses it, since anyone using the app under your Windows account could place your saved signature.

Change my signature or initials replaces what you saved. Use it if your signature looks wrong, you want to switch from typed to drawn, or you have a better picture.

A picture of a signature, not a digital signature

This is worth being clear about. Fill and sign places a picture of your signature on the page, the on screen equivalent of signing a printed copy. For most everyday forms, letters, delivery notes and agreements that is exactly what is asked for.

Some documents need a digital signature, a cryptographic seal that proves who signed and shows whether the document has changed since. PDF by Zaweba signs digitally as well, and that is a separate job from Fill and sign. If a document says it must be digitally signed, the picture of your signature isn't enough on its own.

Signing well

Fill in everything else first, then sign last, as you would on paper. Read the document through before signing. And keep a copy of what you signed, saved under a clear name, so you can find it if it is ever questioned.

Done this way, signing a PDF in PDF by Zaweba takes a minute, and you never need to go near a printer.