Forms and signatures (Fill & Sign)
Forms
The Fill arrow — the first tool in the Fill & Sign row — is the hand you fill a form with. The app finds the form fields for you and lights the one under the pointer. Click to type, tick a checkbox, choose a radio button, pick from a list. Tab moves to the next field in the order the document itself defines; Space toggles the focused checkbox or picks the radio button. The arrow in Annotate can do the same, so a form field is never more than a click away.
Your signature library
The Signatures palette is your signature library. Add a signature by:
- Draw Signature… — sign with the mouse or trackpad on a canvas with a baseline guide; the line is smoothed;
- Type Signature… — type your name and pick one of the handwriting faces that ship with your Mac; from the moment it lands in the library nothing tells it apart from a drawn one;
- From Photo… — a photo of your signature on paper: the paper is made transparent and the ink colour is kept, with an "ink pickup" slider and a transparent-checkerboard preview so you can see exactly what you get;
- Edit ▸ Import from iPhone or iPad ▸ Take Photo — sign a piece of paper, photograph it with your iPhone or iPad, and the shot lands straight in the same photo cleanup, without the picture ever touching a file;
- Import Signature… — an image file (or drop one onto the palette).
The library holds more than signatures:
- Initials — a second kind of asset, sized for the small "initial here" boxes a form scatters around. Draw them, type them, or make them with Initials from a Signature… from a signature you already have.
- Signer Profiles — the block of lines that sits under a signature on a business document: name, title, company and (optionally) the date, saved once and placed like a signature. You can keep several, because a person signs for more than one company.
Each item can be renamed, given a default width, or deleted, and the library is kept between launches. A signature can be placed in its original ink, black, blue or dark red — signing in blue is how a bank tells an original from a photocopy — and it remembers the size it was last fitted to, so the fourth box is signed at the same size as the first three.
Signing a document
Open a form in Fill & Sign and the places a signature belongs are outlined on the page — the app reads the form's own signature fields and also recognises the "Sign here" lines of common paper forms. Click one and the Signatures palette opens and asks which signature (or set of initials — it knows which kind the spot wants) to put there; your choice drops in fitted to the space the form left for it, as one step one ⌘Z takes back. You can still simply drag any signature from the palette to anywhere on any page.
- Fill in the date too — a switch in the palette: when a signing block also has a Date box, today's date is written beside your signature as part of the same placement — one step, one ⌘Z for both.
- Sign Every Spot — a form with three signing spots is signed by walking them, not hunting for them. The button in the Signatures palette says how many there are ("Sign Every Spot (3)"), and Edit ▸ Sign Every Signing Spot… does the same: the app takes you through every spot in reading order, scrolls each into view, and asks one question at a time — "2 of 3", the page, the form's own caption, and the signature about to land. Return places it, → skips, ← steps back, Esc stops. Each placed signature is its own undo step.
A placed signature, set of initials or signer profile becomes part of the page itself — not a removable annotation — so every save and every export carries it for every reader, including the ones that mishandle annotations. The export options say so. Honesty note: these are pictures of a signature. For a cryptographic one, read on.
Certificate (digital) signatures
File ▸ Digitally Sign… signs the document with a digital ID:
- pick a digital ID from your keychain, or create one on the spot (the app is plain about it: an ID you make yourself is self-signed, and other people's software will say "unknown signer" unless they choose to trust it);
- add a reason and location if you like, and choose how the signature shows on the page — invisibly, name and date only, or with the picture of one of your library signatures;
- the app writes a signed copy to a file you choose — the document you have open is not touched — and then re-reads the copy and reports on its signature before it uses the word "signed".
Opening any signed document checks the signature: the badge at the bottom says Signed, Signed · unknown signer or Changed since signing, and clicking it shows the verdict on each signature. One flipped byte after signing is enough to turn the verdict — that is the point of the feature.