To send a PDF for signature, upload the file, put the signature and other fields where they belong on its pages, say who signs and in what order, and send each person a link by email or text. The signer opens the link on a phone or a computer, with no account to make and no app to install, agrees to sign electronically, fills in their boxes and types their name. Everyone ends up with the same file, sealed, and a code anybody can use to check it.
Here is what it takes to send a PDF for signature in SignSealer, step by step, with the decisions along the way.
The steps, from file to link
Upload the PDF. Start a new document, say whether it is for once or for again (more on that below), and choose Upload a PDF and sign it where it is. The pages are drawn in your own browser and shown at a size you can read. The file does not need to be a form already: a flat PDF with no fields at all is fine, and its words are never retyped, which matters when a lawyer has already read them.
Place the fields. Pick what goes on the page — a signature, initials, a date, a line of text — and drag a box where it should appear. Each box belongs to a signer and is marked required or not. This is how you add signature fields to a PDF that has none, and it is worth doing slowly: a signature box sitting half over a paragraph is the first thing a customer notices.
Say who signs, and in what order. One person, or several, in order or all at once, each with their own boxes. If the business signs too, the order is not a formality, and who signs last explains why.
Send it. Give each signer an email address, a mobile number or both, and the link goes by email, by text or both. The screen after sending shows each link once, so you can copy one to hand over in person. A link goes by text only to a number whose consent to be texted is on record, in the words the person agreed to, and texting is one of the extras on the membership rather than part of Free. The text message policy sets out what is sent and what STOP does.
What the signer sees
The link opens one page. There is no account to make and no app to install, which is what "e-sign a PDF without an account" ought to mean: the page is the whole of the signer's involvement.
The first thing on it is a short card about signing electronically, which in the standard wording says they are agreeing to sign this way, that a copy will be emailed to them, and that they can ask the sender for paper instead. Under it is a button that says I agree to sign electronically. That is its own press, at its own time, recorded before any signature is accepted.
Then the document, every page, with their boxes on it. A guide held at the top of the screen names the next box to fill in, and then says Next: Sign here, where they type their name. Done — go to Sign takes them to the button under the last page rather than signing from the top, so the whole document really was above the signature. One press saves the boxes and signs.
What comes back to each side
When everyone has signed, each signer is emailed the signed copy: the sealed PDF, attached, with the code it can be checked by. A signer whose link reached their own inbox or phone can also download it from the page they signed on.
You get the same sealed PDF, with your own pages first and the values drawn where you placed them, the certificate after them, and the evidence behind it. Every step is recorded in order, from sent and viewed to consented, signed and completed, each with its time, network address and browser, and a fingerprint tying it to this exact file. The trail is append-only and hash-chained, so an edit breaks it visibly rather than silently. A sealed PDF with its audit trail is the thing to keep; our page on evidence and the audit trail shows what is in it.
Anybody holding the document can check it at signsealer.com/verify with its code, without an account and without asking you. The check says whether the certificate still matches the record behind it, and it names the signers only to somebody who can show the document's fingerprint.
One thing to know before a customer asks. The seal on the PDF is SignSealer's own. It shows any change to the file, but it is not issued by an authority PDF readers trust out of the box, so a reader may describe the signature as coming from an unrecognised issuer. The check page is what confirms the document, and AATL and non-AATL signing covers when the difference matters.
Once, or as a template
The first question when you start a document is whether this is One document, this once or Something I will use again. It changes nothing about how the document is signed or sealed, because a one-off takes the same path as everything else, but it changes where the document lives. A one-off is kept out of your templates list, so that list stays short, and it keeps a Send again button, because a letter sent to the wrong address is the most ordinary thing in the world. A reusable one goes in your templates, to be sent as often as you like, or left where people sign it themselves: a QR code, a link on your website, a tablet on a counter.
The rule of thumb: a settlement, a letter or a one-off contract is once, and the waiver or rental agreement you send every week is a template. You can change your mind afterwards in either direction. If there is no PDF yet, the template library has documents to start from instead.
Can you send a PDF for signature free?
Yes, within limits. The free plan covers 25 signings a month, by email, with certificates and public verification, and needs no card to start. A signing is a completed agreement, however many people signed it, and nothing is billed for a document nobody signs. Texting and the other extras come with the membership, and the pricing page has the rest. The page on signing a PDF you already have goes through the same flow from the sender's side.
SignSealer is not a law firm and this is not legal advice. This describes how sending a PDF for signature works in SignSealer; whether a particular document may be signed electronically, and what it needs to say, is a question for a lawyer.
