E-signatures overview

You can sign a document to attest to its contents or approve the document. The e-signature feature in Acrobat allows you to send, sign, and manage documents electronically.

Signing PDF documents or forms

Use Fill & Sign in Acrobat to sign a PDF document or form electronically or add your initials.

Select All tools > Fill & Sign, then add your signature or initials from the Fill & Sign yourself section. You can:

• Type, draw, or insert an image of your handwritten signature.
• Add text such as your name, company, title, or date.
• Save the document to embed your signature, initials, and text into the PDF.

Syncing signatures across devices

With the signature sync feature, you can:

• Take a picture of your signature using the Adobe Acrobat Reader mobile app.
• Use the saved signature across desktop, web, and mobile devices.
• Store your signature in Adobe cloud storage for automatic syncing.
• Download your signature in real-time when signing a document if it is not locally available.

Requesting signatures from others

Use Request e-signatures to send documents to others for electronic signatures through Adobe Acrobat Sign. Select All tools > Request e-signatures. 

Signers don’t require an Acrobat subscription and can sign agreements from anywhere using a web browser or mobile device. To learn more about requesting signatures from others, visit Send documents for e-signature.

Supported file types for signing

Besides PDFs, you can send the following file types for signing:

• Microsoft Office files: DOC, DOCX, RTF, XLSX, PPT, PPTX
• Text files: TXT, CSV
• Web files: HTML, HTM
• Image files: TIFF, TIF, BMP, GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG

Signers experience

Here’s what signers can expect when receiving a document for signature:

• They receive an email with a link to sign the agreement.
• If using Acrobat or Acrobat Reader, they also receive an in-app notification.
• No sign-up or Acrobat subscription is needed to complete the signing process.

Signing component PDFs and PDF portfolios 

You can sign individual files or the entire portfolio in different ways:

• To lock component PDFs for editing: Sign a component PDF within the portfolio. The signed file remains saved in the portfolio.
• To sign the whole portfolio: Sign the cover sheet. Once the cover sheet is signed, additional signatures can only be added to the cover sheet, and not to individual documents.

Viewing signed and certified PDF portfolios

When viewing a signed or certified portfolio, here’s how signature information is displayed:

• A signed or certified PDF portfolio contains one or more signatures.
• The most significant signature appears in the signature badge in the toolbar.
• All signature details are available on the cover sheet.
• Hover over the signature badge to see the signer’s name, select it to view details on the cover sheet, and check for a warning icon if the signature is invalid.