How To Sign PDF Documents In Preview On Your Mac

You don't need to print out, sign, and then scan in documents. You can sign them right on your Mac. Using the Markup Tools in Mac Preview and other places, you can sign documents and fill in other text. Your signatures are saved for later use so it is even easier after the first time.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Today, let me show you how to sign PDF documents using Preview on your Mac. 
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So often you get a PDF document, maybe emailed to you or sent some other way, and you're asked to sign it and return it. You don't need to print it out, sign it, and scan it. You could sign it right on your Mac keeping it digital the entire time. The main way to do this is using Preview although there are other methods as well. I'll show you at the end. 
Let's start here with this form PDF document. I'll double click it and it will open up in Preview as the default PDF viewer. If it opens up in another app you can Control click on it and choose Open With and then select Preview in the list. Now you can see here in this form I've got three things that I need to fill-in. One is the Signature, which of course needs my written signature. But the other two are things where I need pieces of text. Let's start off by filling in the name and date which is printed text. To do all of this you're going to have to switch to the Markup Tools. Now if you don't see the Markup Tools up here you may need to click this button and select Markup there. But if the Tool Bar is wide enough then Markup Tools will appear here. Click that and you get all these tools there. Let's click the Text Box tool to create a new piece of text. Now you may see something like this where the text is the wrong color, the wrong size, and everything. So with it selected I can click here and change the size. Let's change it to something like 24 point and let's change the color by clicking here and change it to black. I can also change the font if I want. So get this just about where you want it and then put whatever text you want in here. So I'll put an example name in there. Click outside and then click and drag this to put it where you want. Now you can do the same thing, and it should remember the fonts and everything there, and do it for the date. Now drag that there. You could position these anyway that you want.
Now let's get the signature done. In order to do the signature you need to use this button here. When you click it you'll either see a list of signatures that you've already setup or you'll have options to add a new signature. Now there are three ways that you might see. You may only see one or two of these depending upon the capabilities of your Mac. Here I've got a trackpad so I can use my trackpad to sign. If I have that selected and I click here to begin I now draw with the trackpad. I use the trackpad as a full surface, not as a cursor anymore. So I can draw on it and try to get a signature. Then press any key when I'm done. That will add that as a signature. 
Now another way to do it would be to use the camera. The idea of using the camera, if your Mac has a built-in camera or you have another webcam, is first to draw your signature on a piece of paper. So get a blank piece of paper, draw your name on it. I suggest using a nice thick marker to create nice thick lines rather than the thin lines of a pen. Have nothing else around it. No lines underneath it or anything. Just use a blank white paper. Now select Camera and hold the signature up to the camera. It will capture it like that. Then Done. You get the best signature this way. You can also go back in here and another way to do it is to capture your signature using an iPhone or iPad. This will appear if you have all the Continuity features turned on and an iPhone or iPad signed into the same Apple ID and nearby. So if you see iPhone or iPad here you can click that and your iPhone or iPad will immediately be transformed into a writing tablet for writing your signature. So I'll select that and then, in this case my iPad, is transformed into this and I can write on there using my finger. Then you could see it appear on the Mac at the same time. Then I can use the Done button on the iPad or the Done button here on my Mac. It records that signature. 
Notice how you can have multiple signatures stored here. So you can have variations of your signature. You can also, maybe, put your signature and initials because sometimes you need initials on a document. Sometimes we have different ways of signing our name like including the middle name or not. Sometimes you have multiple signatures like you and your spouse may both want to have your signature in here so that you can both sign a document that you get no matter who is signed onto the Mac at the time. 
Now to use one of these signatures simply click here again and you still have the Create Signature button but you can choose one of these other signatures. Also notice there's an x button here so you can remove ones that you don't want to use anymore. So I'll click this and you can see it places the signature there. I can position it. I can grab the corners and resize it so I can size it appropriately. Then I'm done. Next time I want to sign another document this will be here ready for me to select. So it's easy to do after the first time you set it up. Now when I save this document here and Close it you'll notice if I open it up again the text I added as annotations and the signature are there. I can't change the signature. The signature is permanent. The annotations though are actually there for me to Edit if I want as long as I'm opening up in Preview. The person receiving them probably won't be able to edit those. For instance here if I were to open this up in another app, like Safari, you can see there's the annotations, there's the signature and none of this can be changed. 
One thing you can do though to guarantee that the annotations are permanent is in Preview use Export as PDF to export it again. So I'll export here on the Desktop as Form Done and now if I open up Form Done these are no longer annotations. They are permanent parts of the document.
Now you don't have to be in Preview to sign a document. It's part of the Markup Tools. So Markup Tools are in other places. For instance in Mail here if I compose a new message and drag and drop the PDF into Mail, if I move my cursor to the right hand corner of the document in the Mail as an Attachment I can choose Markup Tools and then in Markup Tools I can do annotations and I can choose a signature there as well. This also works well if you receive a PDF in an email message from someone. Then you reply. Then click up here. You can see it says Include Attachments from Original Message. So I'll include the attachment here and now that PDF is right here and I can sign it before sending it by going to Markup Tools and then choosing a signature, putting it in its place, adding text like before, setting the text up like I want, positioning it like I want, and then when I go to Send it includes all of that there in the PDF that's sent back to the person. So you can do this all without ever having to save the document at all. 
Now you can also do the same thing without ever having to even open the document in Preview or any other app. So in the Finder if you select the file and you have the Preview pane open here, you can do that in View and then there's Show and Hide Preview right here, you'll have the Quick Actions at the bottom. You can use the Markup Quick Action. Click that and it brings up the Markup Tools in a separate window that is not part of any application. Here you can use the Text Boxes. You can use the signatures. You can position those just like before to sign and complete the document. Then just click Done. Now if you look at the document you can see it has all that saved in there. You can even do it without the Finder window and the Preview area here by just Control clicking, right clicking on the mouse or two finger clicking on the trackpad to bring up the Context Menu. Then choose Quick Actions, Markup and you can get right to the Markup Tools that way also.
So you can see how easy it is to sign documents on your Mac. Once you have your signature setup in the Markup Tools like that you can take care of signing all the documents you need completely digitally, without ever having to printout, scan in documents or anything like that.

Comments: 5 Responses to “How To Sign PDF Documents In Preview On Your Mac”

Bruce D Barnett

3 years ago

This was very informative ... and something I've been struggling with for some time. Thanks!

Raymond Ellis

Thank you for the information on how the signed document, I found it very helpful.

Jason Gold

I had no idea how useful this could be. Thanks! A future segment on the other features on Mark Up would also be great.

Chris Mendez

Anyone know if you can transfer existing signatures to a new Mac running Big Sur? I recently got a new Macbook Air and did the migration assistant but the signatures did not transfer over for Preview. I found some instructions online that related to Yosemite, but they didn't work for Big Sur to copy the Annotation file.

Gary Rosenzweig

Chris: My guess is that you came from a Mac that stored the signatures differently. It depends on the security features of your Mac. So you'll just need to add new signatures now that you have a new Mac.

Comments Closed.

How To Sign PDF Documents In Preview On Your Mac

Comments: 5 Responses to “How To Sign PDF Documents In Preview On Your Mac”

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