Is an electronic signature added with PurePDF legally valid?
In most countries and jurisdictions, an electronic signature on a PDF is legally valid for the majority of everyday contracts and agreements. In the United States, the E-SIGN Act and UETA give electronic signatures the same legal standing as handwritten signatures. In the EU, the eIDAS regulation recognises electronic signatures. However, the legal landscape is nuanced: certain document types (wills, some real estate transfers, court filings) may require wet ink signatures or qualified electronic signatures with certificate-based authentication. For high-stakes legal documents, consult a legal professional about the signature requirements in your jurisdiction.
What methods are available for creating a signature?
PurePDF offers three signature creation methods. Draw: use your mouse on desktop or your finger on a touchscreen to draw your handwritten signature in a canvas — this produces the most natural-looking result. Type: enter your name and choose from several signature-style fonts that render it in a cursive or calligraphic style. Upload: provide a PNG or JPEG image of your signature (for example, a scanned copy of your handwritten signature against a white background). All three methods produce a signature image that is embedded into the PDF.
Can I sign a password-protected PDF?
No. PurePDF requires an unlocked PDF as input. If the PDF is protected with an open password (user password), the browser cannot render its pages and the signing tool will not function. Remove the password protection first using PurePDF's Encrypt PDF tool or another utility, then sign the unlocked document. You can re-apply password protection after signing if needed.
Are my documents and signature uploaded to a server?
No. The entire signing process happens in your browser. Your PDF is rendered using PDF.js, the signature is created and positioned using HTML Canvas, and the final document is assembled using pdf-lib — all locally, without any data being sent to a server. This means your document contents and your personal signature data never leave your device.
Can I add multiple signatures or initials to a PDF?
Yes. You can add as many signatures and initials as needed to a document. After placing your first signature, you can click "Add Signature" again to create and place additional ones on the same page or different pages. This is useful for documents that require initials on multiple pages as well as a full signature on the final page.
Does signing a PDF preserve the original document quality?
PurePDF signs PDFs by rendering each page to canvas and re-encoding it with the signature embedded as an image layer. The visual quality of the document is preserved at the same level as other PurePDF tools — excellent at normal viewing sizes. The trade-off, as with all raster-based PDF tools, is that selectable text and interactive elements in the original PDF become part of the image layer in the signed output.
Can I use a touchscreen to draw my signature?
Yes. The signature drawing canvas supports both mouse input on desktop and touch input on touchscreen devices including smartphones and tablets. Drawing with a finger or stylus on a tablet produces the most natural-looking handwritten signature. On a touchscreen phone, the canvas works well but the smaller screen area may make it harder to produce a clean signature — consider using a stylus for the best result.
What is the difference between signing a PDF and certifying it?
Signing a PDF (as PurePDF does) embeds your signature as a visual element in the document. Certifying a PDF involves creating a cryptographic digital certificate that is mathematically linked to the document content, so any change to the document after certification is detectable and invalidates the certificate. PurePDF adds visual signatures, not cryptographic certificates. For documents requiring tamper-evident digital certification with a verifiable chain of trust, you need a qualified electronic signature service or a certificate authority.
How do I position the signature precisely?
After creating your signature, it appears on the PDF page as a draggable element. Click and drag it to any position on the page. Resize handles let you scale it up or down. You can zoom in on the PDF page for more precise placement. The signature preview shows it in context against the document so you can verify it is placed correctly before saving. If you are not happy with the position, drag it again before clicking Save PDF.
Can I save my signature for reuse?
Currently, signatures are not persisted between sessions for privacy reasons — all data is cleared when you close the tab. To reuse a signature across multiple documents, the most practical approach is to upload an image of your signature (a PNG with a transparent or white background) each time, which takes only a few seconds and produces consistent results. We are considering a local-storage-based saved signature option as a future feature.