Using your phone to sign a PDF or other digital document that needs your signature is simple. Both iPhones and Android phones come with built-in features for quickly signing documents, storing a fresh copy, and emailing them off.
Although these tools are useful in an emergency, I wouldn’t suggest using them to mark up a more complex document that needs several signatures and a lot of text fields. To be honest, if you’re signing something like an apartment lease, you might want to break out a larger screen, like a PC or tablet, and use a more sophisticated signature application, like DocuSign or Microsoft 365, which is better designed.
The majority of papers that require your signature are significantly shorter and easier to complete, so if you’re working with one of those, you can quickly fill it out and send it off using Google Drive or Apple’s Markup tool.
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Sign with Google Drive on Android or iPhone
All Android phones come with the Google Drive software, which can also be downloaded on an iPhone. It has markup capabilities that make signing documents simple.
You must first access the PDF you wish to sign in Google Drive on an Android device.
Depending on the file, you will see either an Edit option with a pencil or an Annotate option with a pen and squiggly lines when it is open. You may then choose Form Filling to enter your extra information if you have the Edit option. If the only option available to you is Annotate, you may quickly sign your document by tapping it to launch a pen tool.
If you must change the document to add plain text, you might wish to utilize a more reliable alternative service as Google Drive doesn’t always identify PDFs that should include the Form Filling option. Should the aforementioned procedures have fulfilled your document’s requirements, you may save the modifications by selecting Save in the upper right corner. You may hit the More button, which is indicated by three vertical dots, and select Save as if you wish to create a different copy with these modifications.
Google Drive’s iPhone version is less feature-rich. A Fill out form option will appear at the bottom of a PDF once it has been opened, indicating if Google Drive can complete the form. Otherwise, there isn’t a backup annotation option. An alternative method is to utilize Apple’s built-in document signing mechanism.
Sign with Apple’s Markup tool on iPhone
Adding text, graphics, emojis, and signatures to documents and photographs is possible with Apple’s Markup tool. This capability is available across iOS, either from Apple’s Share menu or immediately while viewing a PDF.
Whether the PDF is from a website or an email attachment, you should first examine it before signing it. The Markup tool may already be visible in the lower-right corner of the screen, symbolized by a pen tip enclosed in a circle, depending on the program you are using to see it. If not, press the Share icon (a square with an upward-pointing arrow) and then scroll up to locate and tap Markup in the pop-up menu.
You may use a number of pen tools to write right onto the page after Markup is enabled, but don’t use them to sign the document. Rather, hit the Signature icon (usually located in the top row of the Markup menu) that is indicated by a pencil-shaped rectangle. You may then choose Add Text Form Box or Add Signature by touching the + icon that appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen. While the latter is useful for handwritten signatures, the former is better for typing in print text.
You may first relocate the text box by dragging and resizing it as necessary if you choose to add one. The keyboard for typing text may then be accessed by tapping inside the text field. You can tap outside the text box to make the keyboard vanish when you’re done, and then you can hit Done in the upper-right corner to save your changes.
If you are adding a signature, you will first sign your name with your finger using the pop-up menu. You may store that signature and use it on other papers in the future. Once the signature is set up, you can transfer it into a text box in the document by tapping Done. After that, you may drag, drop, and resize as necessary with your finger.
You may make more changes with each box by touching the option icon (three dots (…)) next to each box, whether you’re using the text box option or the signature option. If necessary, you may cut, copy, duplicate, or delete the box using this pop-up.
You have two options once you’ve finished editing: click Done to save your changes, or click the Share icon to transfer the updated document to another program, such as your email or cloud storage.