Draw, type or upload a signature: which one to pick

Try all 3 now

Sign PDFDraw, type or upload; flatten on save. Free, runs on your device.Open

Open any PDF, pick New signature in the Sign tool and the pad opens with 3 tabs: Draw, Type and Upload. Switch between them before you press Use this signature; nothing is placed until you do. It runs on your device and nothing is uploaded, which matters more for a signature than for almost anything else you put in a PDF.

The 30-second answer by situation

Your situation	Pick	Why
Signing on a phone or tablet	Draw	A finger on glass draws a steady line, and the pad is taller on a phone screen
Laptop with a trackpad or mouse	Type	A mouse signature looks shaky; typing is instant and tidy
You want your real handwriting on the page	Upload	A photo of the signature you write on paper
The same signature on many documents, months apart	Type or Upload	Both come out identical every time; a drawn one never does
A pen tablet or a touchscreen laptop with a stylus	Draw	The pad takes a pen as well as a finger

Draw: the most personal, if your device allows it

The Draw tab is a white strip with a baseline and the words “Draw here with a mouse, finger or pen”. You sign above the line, stroke by stroke, and Clear wipes it for another go. Ink offers Black or Blue; Blue is picked when the pad opens, which makes the signature stand out from printed black text.

What it is good at: it is your hand, captured live. With a finger on a phone it is close to signing on paper. With a stylus it is better than paper.

Where it stops: a mouse. Signing with a mouse is like writing with a bar of soap, and the result shows it. A trackpad is a little better and still not great.

What lands in the file: the strokes as vector lines, sharp at any zoom, about 4 to 12 KB in our tests on a 1-page document, depending on how long the signature is. It is drawn page content, not a picture.

Type: instant and tidy, and it looks like a font because it is one

The Type tab has a box that says “Your name”. As you type, the preview shows your name in a handwriting style (the Caveat font, bundled with getPDF). Same ink choice, Black or Blue.

What happens when you press Use this signature matters: getPDF turns the name into outlines, the shapes of the letters, before it goes on the page. So:

• No font is embedded in your PDF, and no viewer can swap the font for a different one. It looks the same in Acrobat, Preview, Chrome and Edge.
• It is not text. Nobody can select your typed name, copy it or find it with a search. To a PDF reader it is a drawing.
• It is the same every time. Type “Jane Cooper” today and in 6 months and the outlines are identical. Click to place it and it lands at the same width (170 points, about 6 cm) each time.

In our test the typed “Jane Cooper” added about 11 KB.

Where it stops: it looks typed. Anyone who has seen a few e-signed documents recognises a handwriting font. That does not change its legal weight for everyday documents, but if the look of a real signature matters to you, upload instead.

Upload: your true paper signature

The Upload tab has Choose a picture and one setting, Make the white paper see-through, which is ticked. Sign on plain white paper with a dark pen, photograph it from straight above in good light, and choose the photo. The pad takes PNG, JPG or WebP.

With the setting ticked, near-white pixels become see-through, so only the ink lands on the document, not a grey rectangle of paper. Light grey is faded out gradually, so the edges of the strokes stay soft rather than jagged. A picture larger than 1,200 pixels on its longest side is scaled down to that, which is still far sharper than any signature line needs.

What it is good at: it is your actual signature, the one on your passport and your bank card. And like typing, it is identical every time if you keep the same photo.

Where it stops: the photo. A shadow across the paper, lined paper or a crumpled sheet survives the clean-up as grey marks, because only near-white is removed, and pencil comes out faint and patchy. The fix is a better photo; make a signature image from paper covers the habits. Uploaded pictures are also the largest of the 3: a 1,200 by 400 pixel signature added about 60 to 100 KB in our tests (more when the paper is grainy), because a picture with see-through parts keeps every pixel.

The 3 side by side

	Draw	Type	Upload
Effort	10 seconds with a finger, frustrating with a mouse	5 seconds	A few minutes the first time (sign, photograph), then 10 seconds
Looks like	Your hand, as steady as the device lets you be	A handwriting font	Your real signature
Best device	Phone, tablet, stylus	Laptop, desktop	Any, once you have the photo
Identical on every document	No	Yes	Yes, from the same photo
Ink colour	Black or Blue	Black or Blue	The photo’s own ink
In the file	Vector strokes	Letter outlines	A picture
Legal weight, everyday documents	Simple electronic signature	Simple electronic signature	Simple electronic signature

Does the method change the legal weight?

No, and this is the part people worry about most. This is not legal advice; it is the map, checked on 11 October 2026.

In the EU, the eIDAS regulation defines an electronic signature broadly: data in electronic form that a person attaches to other data and uses to sign. A drawn line, a typed name in a handwriting style and a photo of your signature all fit. Article 25 says an electronic signature cannot be denied legal effect only because it is electronic. All 3 are what eIDAS calls simple electronic signatures.

In the US, the ESIGN Act and UETA make electronic signatures valid for most private contracts when both sides intend to sign and have agreed to deal electronically. They do not rank a drawn mark above a typed name.

So for a lease, an offer letter, an invoice approval or a school form, choose the method you like. The plain-words explainer on signature law goes further. The exceptions (notarised deeds, wills, some registry and court filings, public tenders) need a qualified signature, and the method in the pad does not help there.

The honest part

None of the 3 is a certificate signature. The pad says so in its own words: “A signature like one on paper, placed on the page as a drawing. It is not a certificate-based digital signature.” If a tender, a bank or a registry asks for an advanced or qualified signature, you need a certificate from a trust service provider; getPDF does not make those yet.

Validity and proof are different things. All 3 are valid; none proves by itself who drew it. What helps later is consistency (the same signature on every document, which favours Type and Upload) and keeping your own copy of what you signed, together with the email it came in.

The pad forgets when the tab closes. A signature you make stays ready while the tab is open, also for the next file you open in it. Close the tab and you make it again. Nothing is written to your disk or to a server. If that sounds tedious, the guide on reusing your signature has the routine that makes it 10 seconds: keep 1 signature photo in a folder, or type the same name.

For the whole signing and filling job, from the first field to the flattened save, start at Sign and fill a PDF.