Sign a scanned document or a photo of a form

Scanned PDFs, JPGs from a flatbed scanner, or a photo of a paper form taken with your phone. Drop it here, place your signature on it and download a PDF. Nothing is uploaded.

Drop a PDF, JPG or PNG here

Processed on your device. No upload, no account, no limits.

Why scanned documents are different

A scan is a picture of a page. There is no text layer and no form fields, so tools that look for a "signature field" find nothing. That does not matter here: SignPrivate places your signature at the position you click, on top of the image, and then flattens it into the page. The result is exactly what you would get by printing the scan, signing it with a pen and scanning it again, minus the printer.

How to do it

Get the scan onto the device you are using. A PDF from a scanner, a JPG or PNG from a scanner app, or a photo straight from your phone camera all work. On a phone you can open this page and choose the photo directly from your camera roll.
Drop the file above. Images are turned into a single-page PDF of the same proportions. Photos taken sideways are rotated correctly using the photo's orientation data.
Add your signature. Draw it, type it, or upload a photo of your real signature. If you upload one, keep Remove white background ticked so the paper colour disappears and only the ink remains.
Place it on the signature line. Click, drag, resize. Add the date next to it if the form has a date line.
Download. You get a PDF, which is what most offices, landlords, schools and banks expect back.

Getting a clean result from a phone photo

Photograph the page flat, in daylight or under an even lamp, from directly above. Shadows from your hand are the most common problem.
Crop to the page edges in your phone's photo editor before uploading. The tool keeps the proportions of whatever you give it.
If the form has several pages, photograph each one, sign them one at a time and send the resulting PDFs together, or combine them first with a scanner app.
Prefer a scanner app (the Notes app on iPhone, Google Drive scan on Android) over a plain photo. These correct perspective and contrast, and they produce a PDF directly.

Does a signature on a scan count?

For most everyday documents, yes. A scan with a signature placed on it is a simple electronic signature, the same category as a scanned wet-ink signature. Whether it is enough depends on the document and the country, which we cover in Is a drawn signature legally binding?. For high-value contracts, the other party may ask for a service that verifies identity and keeps an audit trail.