How to sign a PDF without DocuSign

DocuSign and similar services exist to solve a specific problem: proving, with a verifiable audit trail, that a specific person agreed to a specific document at a specific time — the kind of thing that matters for a legally binding contract between parties who don't fully trust each other. Most signing situations aren't actually that.

When you genuinely need an audit trail

If a signature needs to hold up as evidence later — a commercial contract, a legal agreement between separate organizations — a dedicated e-signature service that timestamps and verifies the signing event is the right tool, and worth whatever it costs.

When you just need your signature on a page

A permission slip, an internal form, a document you're signing and sending to someone who already trusts you — these don't need a verified audit trail, just your actual signature visibly on the page. Sign PDF lets you draw a signature with your mouse or finger, or type your name in a handwriting-style font, and place it wherever it needs to go, entirely in your browser.

The honest limitation

This is a visual signature, not a cryptographically verified one — there's no timestamp authority or identity verification behind it, the same way there wouldn't be if you printed the page and signed it with a pen. For anything where that verification actually matters, that's exactly the situation a proper e-signature service is built for.