Legally binding eSignatures for PDF, Word and Excel documents

Drop your document here and sign it now. PDF, Word and Excel all work: a .docx or .xlsx is laid out in your browser exactly as it was written, so there is nothing to convert first. Add a signature, a date, a company stamp or a watermark, then download it sealed. Free to start, no account, and the file is never uploaded to open it.

Drop your document here and sign it now. PDF, Word and Excel all work: a .docx or .xlsx is laid out in your browser exactly as it was written, so there is nothing to convert first. Add a signature, a date, a company stamp or a watermark, then download it sealed. Free to start, no account, and the file is never uploaded to open it.

PDF Verified is an eSignature platform for legally binding digital signatures, with advanced PDF utilities built in. Add your own electronic signature or request signatures from others in seconds, then stamp, seal and verify, a lower-cost DocuSign alternative with serialized digital stamps, company seals, and public QR verification, eIDAS, ESIGN and UETA compliant in 190+ countries.

Sign documents online with a legally binding eSignature

Upload a PDF, a Word document, an Excel spreadsheet or an image, drop in signature, date, and text fields, and add your digital signature or send it for legally binding electronic signatures. Sign on any device, mobile-first, no app download, no printing. Pay $1.50 per document with no subscription, or start a 7-day trial on monthly plans.

Sign a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet, not just a PDF

Drop a .docx or a .xlsx straight in. The document is laid out page by page in your own browser, exactly as Word draws it or as Excel would print it, keeping your fonts, tables, fills, column widths and number formats, then signed, stamped or watermarked and downloaded as a signed PDF. Nothing is uploaded to convert it, and your original file is untouched, so there is no export step and no conversion service in the middle of a confidential contract.

Add a stamp or a watermark to any document

Put a company stamp, a notary seal, an approval mark or a DRAFT, PAID or CONFIDENTIAL watermark on a PDF, a Word document or a spreadsheet. Place the stamp where you want it rather than in a fixed corner, set the watermark colour, size and angle, and use your own logo as the watermark instead of a word. The date on a stamp can fill itself in with the day it is used, and a serial number can step on by itself so no two documents carry the same one.

Design a stamp online, company seals & rubber stamps

Replace the rubber stamp and ink pad. Design a company seal, official seal, or approval stamp (APPROVED, PAID, RECEIVED), date stamp, or certified-true-copy mark and apply it to any document. Verified stamps carry auto-incrementing serial numbers and a public QR verification link.

Verify a signature or document

Every signed PDF carries a QR code on every page. Anyone, with no account, can scan it, paste the code, or upload the file to confirm the signature is authentic and the document untampered, backed by a SHA-256 fingerprint and a full audit trail.

Why PDF Verified instead of DocuSign

Sign a PDF online free, and sign the Word and Excel files too

PDF Verified is an electronic signature tool that runs in your browser. Drop in a document, put your signature where it belongs, add the date, a company stamp or a watermark if it needs them, and download a signed PDF. There is no software to install, no Adobe Acrobat licence, no app on your phone and no account needed to start. The finished file carries no promotional watermark: it has your signature, your stamp and nothing of ours across the page.

Most eSignature tools take a PDF and stop there, which is awkward, because most people do not have a PDF. They have the .docx the contract was drafted in, or the .xlsx the payment schedule lives in, and the usual advice is to go and find Word, export it, and come back. Here a Word document or an Excel spreadsheet is laid out in the browser exactly as the application would lay it out, with its own page breaks, tables, headers, letterhead, column widths and number formats, and then signed. Nothing is converted by you and nothing is sent to a conversion service to do it.

How to sign a document online, in about a minute

Drop the file into the box at the top of this page, or click it and choose one. PDF, DOCX and XLSX all work the same way.

Create your signature. Draw it with a mouse, a finger or a stylus for the closest thing to signing on paper; type your name and pick a handwriting face for the fastest option; or upload a photograph of your real signature on white paper, and the paper is dropped automatically so what lands on the document is the ink.

Place it on the signature line, and add anything else the document needs: the date, your initials, a text field, a company seal, or a DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL watermark across every page.

Seal and download. The signature becomes part of the page rather than an object somebody can drag off it, and the file is fingerprinted so that any later change to it is detectable.

Sign it yourself, or send it to somebody who has no account

Two different jobs hide behind "sign a document". One is signing something you were sent, which the steps above cover. The other is getting somebody else to sign: a client on a contract, a new hire on an offer letter, a tenant on a lease, both parties on an agreement.

For that, mark where each person signs, add their email or copy the link and send it however you like, including by SMS or WhatsApp. They open it in whatever browser they already have and sign. They are never asked to register, which matters more than any feature on this page: a signing wall is where most signature requests quietly die, because somebody who came to spend two minutes will not stop to make a password. You see who has signed and who has not, reminders chase the ones who stall, and the completed document comes back with an audit certificate naming every signer.

Electronic signature, digital signature: they are not quite the same thing

An electronic signature is the legal idea. It is any electronic mark made with the intent to sign, from a typed name to a drawn one, and it is what the ESIGN Act, UETA and eIDAS are about.

A digital signature is a specific technology: a cryptographic operation over the bytes of a document, using a key and a certificate, producing mathematical proof that the file has not changed since it was signed. Every digital signature is an electronic signature. Most electronic signatures are not digital signatures.

In everyday speech the two are used interchangeably, and in a few countries, Argentina, Italy and India among them, they are separate legal categories with different consequences. Every document completed here gets both halves: a visible signature that is part of the page, and a SHA-256 fingerprint sealed with the completion record, so what somebody receives can be checked rather than taken on trust.

Are eSignatures legally binding?

For the great majority of business documents, yes. Electronic signatures are recognised in over sixty countries under the US ESIGN Act and UETA, the EU eIDAS Regulation, the UK position confirmed by the Law Commission in 2019, Japan’s Act on Electronic Signatures, India’s Information Technology Act, and equivalents across Africa, Asia and Latin America.

What decides whether a particular signature holds is not the picture. It is intent to sign, the identity of the signer, and the integrity of the document, and every one of those is recorded here: the signing action and its timestamp, whatever verification the signer passed, and the fingerprint of the exact file.

A small number of document types are carved out almost everywhere, wills and testamentary documents, some family law matters, and anything requiring a notary or a public deed, and the lists differ by country. There are also documents that need a specific tier of signature rather than any signature, which is particularly true in Italy, Poland and Switzerland. Requirements differ by country, by document type and by whoever is asking, so check what applies to your document, and take advice where the document matters.

Company stamps, seals and watermarks, on the same document

A signature says a person agreed. A company stamp says the organisation did, and in much of the Gulf, Asia and Africa an invoice or contract without one gets sent back regardless of what the law says about it. Design a round company seal, an approval mark, a PAID or RECEIVED stamp or a certified true copy stamp, and apply it in the same pass as the signature, on one page or on every page. The date fills itself in at the moment the stamp is applied, so a batch is never dated wrong, and each impression carries a serial number that does not repeat.

Watermarks work the same way, and matter for a different reason. Word has a watermark button and Excel does not, and in both cases the mark is an object the recipient can delete in two clicks. Applied here, DRAFT or CONFIDENTIAL becomes part of the page, so a draft still says draft when it reaches somebody who was not meant to see it.

What the other side gets, and how they check it

Every completed document carries an audit certificate: who signed, when, from what address, which verification steps they passed, and the SHA-256 fingerprint of the finished file. That is the difference between a signature and evidence, and it is the thing most often missing when a bank, a registry or a client refuses a signed document.

Each page also carries a QR code and a short verification code. Anyone can scan it, or upload the file at the verification page, and the fingerprint is recomputed and compared to the sealed original. A match means the document is the one that was signed. A mismatch means it is not, and it says so in about two seconds, with no account needed by the person checking.

That is a thing a paper signature has never been able to do. A wet signature on a page tells you somebody wrote on the page. It tells you nothing about whether the pages around it are the ones that were there at the time.

Priced per document, not per seat

The industry bills in seats and envelopes. Seats mean the bill follows headcount whether anybody sends anything; envelopes mean an allowance that a busy month eats and an overage price that is never the sticker price. Neither suits a business that signs in bursts, which is most of them.

Three documents a month are free here, permanently, with no card and no trial countdown. Beyond that a completed document is $1.50, once, with nothing to cancel afterwards. If you sign often, $15 a month is unlimited documents for the whole business, with no seats to allocate, no envelope allowance, and the REST API included rather than sold as an add-on.

Everything else a document needs on the way through

Signing is rarely the only thing that has to happen. The same workspace edits the text in a PDF in the document’s own font, redacts properly so the words are deleted from the file rather than covered with a black box, merges, splits, rotates, compresses and converts, fills forms that have no form fields, and screens a statement or an invoice for the signs of forgery.

It runs on whatever you are holding. Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Edge, on Windows, macOS, Linux or ChromeOS, and in the browser on an iPhone, an iPad or an Android phone. There is no app to install, which is the point on a work laptop where you cannot install anything and on a phone with no storage left.

Frequently asked questions

What is PDF Verified?

PDF Verified (pdfverified.com) is an e-signature platform with advanced PDF utilities. At its core is signing: request legally binding electronic signatures from others, send multi-document envelopes to several signers at once, create your own digital rubber stamp or company seal and apply it, and require KYC identity verification before anyone signs a high-value document. Alongside signing it includes a full PDF toolkit - convert Word, Excel and images to and from PDF, plus merge, split, compress, organize, rotate and OCR - so you can prepare a document and sign it in one place. Anyone can then verify the signed document - confirming it is authentic and unaltered - through a public QR code and SHA-256 audit trail. You choose how you pay: pay-as-you-go at $1.50 per document with no commitment, or a monthly subscription for unlimited signing. It is eIDAS + ESIGN + UETA compliant across 190+ countries.

How do I electronically sign a PDF?

Upload your PDF at pdfverified.com, drop a signature field where you sign, then draw, type or upload your signature and download the signed file. It works in any browser on desktop or mobile, with no app and no printing. Every signed PDF is sealed with a SHA-256 fingerprint and carries a public QR verification link, so anyone can confirm it is genuine and unaltered.

Can I digitally sign a PDF for free?

Yes, you can fill in and sign a PDF at no cost, with no signup, and pay only when you download a finished document: $1.50 per document pay-as-you-go, or free and unlimited on any paid plan. Unlike a plain image signature, PDF Verified binds your signature to the document with a tamper-evident cryptographic seal, so it is defensible, not just decorative.

How can I add a signature to a PDF document?

Open the PDF in Quick Sign, place a signature field on the page, and create your signature three ways: draw it with your finger or mouse, type it in a signature font, or upload a photo of your handwritten signature. Position it where you sign, add initials, a date or a company stamp if needed, then download or send the document.

How do I fill and sign a PDF online?

Upload the PDF and PDF Verified auto-detects any fillable form fields so you can type into text boxes, tick checkboxes and add the date like a web form. On a flat PDF, just drag a text field wherever you need to type. Then add your signature and download, no account required to start.

Are signatures legally binding worldwide?

Yes. PDF Verified signatures comply with all major eSignature laws - the US ESIGN Act and UETA, the EU eIDAS Regulation, and similar laws across 190+ countries. Every signature comes with a tamper-evident cryptographic hash (SHA-256) and a complete audit trail that is accepted as evidence in court.

How secure is my data?

We use AES-256 encryption at rest and TLS 1.3 in transit - the same standards used by major banks. We are working toward SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification, GDPR and HIPAA ready, with annual independent penetration testing and 24/7 security monitoring.

Can I cancel anytime?

Absolutely. Cancel from your dashboard in one click. No phone calls, no retention scripts. If you prepaid annually, we refund the unused portion on a pro-rated basis.

Does it integrate with our existing tools?

Yes. The working product includes email, WhatsApp share links, QR and magic-link signing, contacts, webhooks, and REST API documentation.

What if I need help or want to see a demo?

Every paid plan is backed by a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can try it risk-free. Or reach our team through live chat - usually responding in under 2 minutes during business hours, and 24/7 for enterprise customers.

Do recipients need an account to sign?

No. Anyone you send a document to can open their private signing link by email, WhatsApp, SMS or QR code and sign in the browser on any device, no account, app or download required. You stay in control of who can open it.

Can several people sign the same document?

Yes. Add as many signers as you need and route them in sequential or parallel order, with their own fields, automatic reminders, live tracking and an optional approval gate before the final file is released. You can also bulk-send the same document to hundreds of recipients at once.

How do I request a signature or send an envelope?

Upload one or more PDFs, add each signer, and drag signature, date, initials and stamp fields onto the pages - that package is your envelope. Send it and every recipient gets a private signing link by email, WhatsApp, SMS or QR code. Route signers in sequence or in parallel, track progress live, and get the sealed, verifiable PDF back automatically once everyone has signed. Recipients need no account, app or download to sign.

Can I require ID (KYC) verification before someone signs?

Yes. Turn on identity verification and a signer must prove who they are before they can sign - from an email or SMS one-time code to full KYC with government-ID capture and a liveness selfie check. It is built for high-value contracts, client onboarding and regulated documents, and the verified identity is recorded in the tamper-evident audit trail attached to the signed PDF, so you can prove not just that someone signed, but exactly who.

How do I verify a signed document later?

Every completed document carries a QR code and a verification link on every page. Scan it, paste the code, or upload the PDF at the verify page to confirm it is genuine and unaltered, see every signer with timestamps, and run a tamper check, no account needed. Each document also carries an RFC 3161 trusted timestamp.

Can I add a company stamp or seal as well as a signature?

Yes. Design a company seal, notary stamp or approval mark in the free stamp maker, save it to your library, then apply it alongside your signature on any PDF. Saved stamps can carry a locked serial number and a QR code so the stamp itself is verifiable, not just a picture.

How long does it take to sign and seal a document?

Under 30 seconds for a simple document: upload, place fields, sign and download or send. There is no software to install, it all happens in the browser, on desktop or mobile.

How do I sign a contract online?

Upload the contract, place a signature field where each party signs, and send it. They open a link in a browser, sign on a phone or a laptop, and the executed contract comes back with an audit certificate recording who signed and when. If the contract is still a Word file, drop that in instead: it is laid out and turned into a PDF here, so there is nothing to export first.

Can I sign a Word document?

Yes. Drop the .docx in and it is laid out page by page in your browser, exactly as Word draws it, then signed and downloaded as a signed PDF. Your original file is untouched, and nothing is uploaded to convert it.

Can I sign an Excel spreadsheet?

Yes. An .xlsx is laid out the way Excel prints it, with your paper size, column widths and number formats, and print title rows repeated on each page. You sign the pages and download a signed PDF, which is what a counterparty actually wants from a spreadsheet.

How do I add a watermark to a document?

Open the PDF and add a DRAFT, CONFIDENTIAL or COPY watermark across every page, in your own colour, size and angle, or use your logo instead of a word. It goes over the text rather than behind it, so it survives printing and photocopying.

Is there an eSignature for small business?

That is who this is built for. There is no per-seat licence, so an occasional signer does not pay for a seat all year: it is $1.50 for a completed document pay as you go, or a flat plan when volume grows. The audit certificate, public verification and company stamps are included rather than gated behind an enterprise tier.

Is this a DocuSign alternative?

Yes, and a deliberate one. The legal weight is the same (ESIGN, UETA and eIDAS), while the pricing is per document rather than per seat, the REST API is included on the Business plan rather than sold as an add-on, and every signed PDF carries a public QR verification page anybody can check without an account. There is a full comparison at /compare/docusign.

Can I sign a document without a subscription?

Yes. Signing a document yourself in the browser costs nothing and needs no account. Sending it to other people, tracking it and the sealed audit certificate are priced per completed document, so there is no monthly fee for something you sign twice a year.

Can I require an OTP before someone opens the document?

Yes. Turn on one-time password verification and the signer gets a code by SMS or email that has to be entered before the document opens, so a forwarded link on its own is useless. The code, the time it was entered and the device are all recorded in the audit certificate.

Are electronic signatures valid in the UK, the USA and Japan?

Yes, under the UK eIDAS regime and the Electronic Communications Act 2000, the US ESIGN Act and UETA, and the Japanese Act on Electronic Signatures and Certification Business, along with equivalents in over 190 countries. Certain document types (some deeds, wills and property instruments) carry extra formalities wherever you are, so check the requirement for that specific document.

Can I send a document for signature over WhatsApp?

Yes. The signing request goes to a WhatsApp number instead of an inbox, the link opens in the phone browser, and the signer needs no app and no account. The audit trail is identical to an emailed request.

Explore

What PDF Verified is, and what it is not

Electronic signature law is settled in broad terms and specific in the details. The ESIGN Act, UETA, eIDAS and their equivalents recognise electronic signatures across more than 190 countries, and what decides a particular case is intent to sign plus evidence connecting the signature to the signer, which is what the audit certificate records. Certain document types carry their own formalities wherever you are: deeds, wills, some property instruments, and anything requiring a witness or a notary. Sign only what you are authorised to sign, since applying another person signature without their authority is forgery whatever tool is used.

PDF Verified is a tool for preparing, signing, stamping and checking documents. It is not a law firm, a compliance service or a forensic examiner, and nothing here is legal, financial or compliance advice. Requirements differ by country, by document type and by the party asking, so check what applies to your document before you rely on it, and take advice where the document matters. You are responsible for the documents you create, sign and send, and for having the authority to do so: signing or stamping in somebody else name, or as an organisation you do not represent, is forgery whatever tool is used. To the extent the law allows, we accept no liability for how a document made with this tool is used or relied on. The full position is in our terms of service.

Check if a PDF was edited

Use PDF Verified as a PDF authenticity checker. The verification engine compares the current file against the sealed SHA-256 fingerprint, then shows whether the PDF is authentic, tampered, expired, revoked, or still waiting for signatures.

Build with the eSignature API

Developers can use the REST API and webhooks to send documents, embed signing, apply verified stamps and seals, trigger certificate-of-completion workflows, and verify signed PDFs programmatically.

More SEO entry points

Popular stamps & seals

Verify & detect tampering

Create a signature