How to sign a Word Document

We all have to eventually learn how to sign a Word document digitally in this day and age. Although it seems daunting in the beginning, signing a Word document digitally is super easy if you follow this guide. We have done all the research and laid it out in this article for your convenience.

How to Add Signature to Word document

Before you insert your signature into a Word document, you need to add a signature field on it.

STEP 1. Here’s the obvious one folks! Open your Word file. For the tutorial, we’re going to use a new one.

STEP 2. Now we get down to the actual business. Find the “Insert” tab located in the menu bar at the top.

Click Insert Tab — Find and Click “Insert”

STEP 3. After that, find “Signature Line” on the top right of the document and click on it.

Signature Line Location and Insert — Click the “Signature Line” feature

Note: Make sure you put your cursor where you want your signature to be.

STEP 4: If you did everything right till step 3, a form should pop up, fill the form and click “Ok”.

Signature Setup Form Opens — Fill the signature setup form

STEP 5: The signature should show up where you had your cursor. Double click on any space near the “X”

Sign Space is created where the cursor would be — Double click the “X”

STEP 6: After double-clicking the “X”, a warning should appear asking you to save the document in a format that supports digital signatures. Click “Yes”.

Confirmation for saving the file in a format that supports signatures — Click on Yes and Save the file (optional)

STEP 7: You should see a box named “Sign” which lets you add your signature.

Sign form opens — Either Type or Insert your signature here

STEP 7.1: Type your signature in the empty box and click on the “Sign” button.
Type your sign like we did and hit “Sign”
STEP 7.1.1: Click “Yes” on the next pop-up and okay in the one that appears after that.
Click on “Yes” (Optional: Only appears when your sign is self-certified)
Read the warning well and press “Ok”

STEP 7.2: Click on “Select Image” instead if you want an image you already signed.
Click on Select Image

NOTE: Select Image can upload standard formats of picture files such as png, jpeg, and so on. This means you can either sign on a drawing application like Paint or draw it by hand and take a photo and upload it to Word. We will delve deeper into methods you can use in the next section, “How to insert a signature into a Word Document”

STEP 7.3: Consequently, an “Insert Pictures” window should appear. It has Bing, Browse from Files and Browse from One Drive options. In our case, we will be using the “Browse” near the computer icon.
You can click any of these options
STEP 7.4: Select your desired image in the location you’ve put it in
Find and Select your image
STEP 7.5: Click sign.
The sign will show up like this. Click “Insert”
STEP 7.6: A Signature confirmation pop-up appears. Please read it carefully and select ok.
Read the sign very carefully and click Ok

This should help you nail down how to add a signature to a Word document.

Things to keep in mind while following this process:

If you don’t already have a verified certificate, you can buy one. Consult Microsoft support for instructions.
If you don’t want to buy a verified certificate for your signature, you can self-certify.
Self-certification should be self-verified from your Word Document.

Note: A message may appear if you don’t have any certificates with you. Accordingly, you need to self certify. Since self-certification is a process of its own, we will go over it in the next heading “How to self-certify and verify your signature on a Word Document.”

Warning sign that shows user what happens when you have no certificates — If this sign appears, follow the process below

How to self certify and verify your signature on a Word Document

Self-certification is a little-known but rather simple process. This is because the “selfcert.exe” file that is used to do it is hidden deep in your root folder. Therefore, we’ll show you how to access the root folder in the easiest way possible and finish your self-certifying job.

STEP 1: Type in “winword.exe” in your search bar. Which is normally located in the taskbar on the bottom of your computer screen.

STEP 2: Right-click on “winword.exe” that shows up in the search bar and you’ll see “Open file location”. Clicking on this will take you to the MS Word root directory.

Helps user to open word's file location — Search “winword.exe” and Open file location

STEP 3: Files are normally sorted in alphabetical order, so all you have to do is, scroll down to “S” and find “selfcert.exe”. After finding it, you’ll have to open it by double-clicking the application.

Find "selfcert.exe" to make custom certificates — Find and click on “selfcert.exe”

STEP 4: The “Create Digital Certificate” window shows up. Here you can type the name of your company or yourself to create one.

Write you company's name and click on ok on the "self cert" window — Write your/your company’s name and click on “Ok”

STEP 5: Read the instructions carefully and click “Ok”.

STEP 5.1: Click “Ok” on the following popup and that’s the creation process wrapped up. Now we verify the signature.

Click ok on successfully created certificate — Click “Ok” and now you have a new certificate!

Verify your signature with a self-certified digital certificate

This process comes immediately after the signature adding process so please follow the steps under the title “how to add signature to Word Document” if you haven’t already.

STEP 1: If you followed the instructions correctly up to this point you should see a warning written above your sign which says “Recoverable Signature.” Double click on the red text.

Recoverable Sign Appears — Double click on the red text

STEP 2: The “Signature Details” window will open.

Click to trust the identity of the certifier — Click the blue text to trust your certificate

STEP 3: Click to trust the user’s identity and close the window.

We’re done with verification as well. This process is certainly lengthy as you probably know by now. However, there are easier ways to go about doing this. Which you can learn from the “How to insert a signature into a Word document” section below.

How to insert a signature into a Word Document

You’ve probably inserted images into Word before. Likewise, we will insert a signature into a Word document by using a similar process.

Making space

In the insertion process, it is necessary to create space for our signature before its manually inserted. You can use both handwritten signatures or ones you signed digitally and have saved as an image.

STEP 1: Find the insert tab on the top left of the Word application.

STEP 2: It’s time to flaunt your drawing skills. Select the “Shapes” dropdown under which, find the “Line” and click on it.

Select "Line" below "Pictures" — Select “Line” From the drop-down menu

STEP 3: Create a line where you want the signature and customize it as you see fit.

Note: You can customize the line by clicking on it and playing around with the bar that appears on the side of your screen.

STEP 4: In the Insert tab, select Text Box, and from the dropdown, click on “Simple Text Box”

Simple text box selection — Select the Simple Text box from Insert

STEP 5: Consequently, Drag the Text Box that appears below your signature line and skew it to look something like this.

Place the text box here — Customize your text box like this

STEP 6: Type signature into the box, select the “Signature text” with Ctrl + A, and right-click it to find “Paragraph”

Right click signature to get paragraph option — Find paragraph after right-clicking the text

STEP 7: Inspect the window that pops up and you’ll see “Alignment”. This aligns the text inside our box. Afterward, choose the alignment you want for your text. We recommend “Centered” because it makes the end product look neat.

Find Alignment and click ok — Find the “Centered” Option from the “Alignment” Dropdown

STEP 8: Click “Ok”

Inserting the image

STEP 1: Select the Insert tab again and find “Pictures”.

Select the pictures option from insert — Select “Pictures” from the Insert panel

STEP 2: Next, Browse to the sign you want to upload and select it.

Find your sign on the directory and insert — Find your signature and “Insert” it in the document

STEP 3: Click on Insert and you’ll see that your sign has appeared on the Word Document.

And that’s how you insert a signature into a Word Document. Now here’s a bonus. We’ll also show you how wrap the signature and make it look professional.

Wrapping the signature

To make a signature look professional, we can wrap it and make it look crisp. Here’s how.

STEP 1: Double click the signature that you just inserted. Immediately, select “Wrap Text” on the upper right.

Select and wrap the sign over text — Double click on your sign for the “Wrap Text” box to appear

STEP 2: From the dropdown menu, choose “In Front of Text”. This option lets you move the signature around and overlap text.

Wrap sign in front of text — Select “In Front of Text”

STEP 3: Move the signature in front of the signature line we created earlier.

Moved signature that envelops the text — The signature is overlapping text box and line

Note: The line and the text box have disappeared because we dragged the box in front of them. But, bear with us.

STEP 4: If you’re still selecting the signature, you should see “Send Backward” on the top right. Click on it so that the text box and the line show up again.

Sends the signature backward with "send backward" option — Click “Send” backward two times.

STEP 5: Drag your signature around until it’s placed to your liking.

Perfect signature placement — This is how your signature should look in the end.

Insert signature in Word mac

We’ve already learned how to sign a Word Document on a Windows PC. The process is more or less the same in this case. Here’s how to sign a Word Document on mac.

STEP 1: Open the Word Document you want to sign.

STEP 2: Find the “Insert” tab on the top left of the screen and select it.

STEP 3: Below it, you will see “Pictures”, click on it, and a dropdown will appear.

Select pictures under insert — Select “Pictures”

STEP 4: Select the “Picture from File” option.

Click on "Select Picture from File" — Choose “Select Picture from File..” from the dropdown

STEP 5: Find the directory you kept your signature on, select it, and click Insert.

Find Directory and Insert image — Click “Insert” after you are done finding it.

STEP 6: After the signature has been inserted, Edit and Replace as preferred.

Perfect sign placement — The end product should look something like this.

How to sign documents with Docdown

Docdown is a document automation software that lets users set up PDFs with custom fillable fields and related features including signs. Follow our guide if you are someone who needs to sign documents often.

Getting your PDF ready for a signature

STEP 1: Sign up to create an account on docdown.io

STEP 2: Click on “Documents”

STEP 3: In the documents section, you can see the “New Document” button. Click on it.

Document upload by click or drag — Click on the “+” beside New Document

STEP 4: In this step, you can upload a PDF in 2 ways:

STEP 4.1 First of all, drag the PDF file you want signed into the “Drop or click to upload PDF file” space.
Drag the to be signed file from your PC

STEP 4.2 Click on the space, and consequently, Browse for the PDF you want and click Open.

Locate the directory of your file and Open it.

STEP 5: Click the ellipsis with three dots beside the uploaded PDF and click edit when your PDF uploads.

Click ellipsis beside pdf to open options — Click on the three-dotted button

Click on edit after clicking on ellipsis — Click on “Edit” for the next step

STEP 6: Docdown’s document editor opens your PDF. Look on the top and click on “Signature”

Click on signature button — Click on the “Signature” button

STEP 7: Drag your cursor in the area where you want your signature.

Drag to create a place to sign — Drag anywhere to create a place for signature

STEP 8: Finally, Save and click on Workflows.

Save signature preparation and go to workflow — “Save” the file and go to “Workflows”

Creating a Workflow

STEP 1: When the “Workflows” section opens, create a new workflow

Creates new workflow — Create a new workflow with the highlighted button

STEP 2: Choose the “Online Form” option.

Select "Online Form" option — Select “Online Form”

STEP 3: Fill the form

Example form and things to notice — Be mindful of the 4 things below while filling the form

Note: While filling the form, there are a few important things to notice:

Select the PDF you saved earlier after creating the signature.
Make sure you choose the “Yes” option under “Download PDF file after generation?”
Choose display selected fields from “Form fields”
Add the name of the signature space you created earlier in the “Select field to display on form” menu.

STEP 4: After you’re done filling the form, Save it

STEP 5: Activate the workflow after it is done saving

Switch the activate workflow button on — Flip the “Activate Workflow” button

STEP 6: Activation of the workflow indicates we can use the link. Therefore, you can tap the little “go to link” arrow under “Your Form Link” now.

Click the "Redirect to link" button — Click the little button. Like in the image.

Signing the document

STEP 1: You should see an interactive page with your document beside it once the link opens.

Sample Sign Page — You’ll be redirected to a similar page

STEP 2: There are 3 options for you in this section:

Three ways to sign a document — You can sign with any method below

Firstly, “Draw” is a feature that lets you manually draw your sign into the document.
“Browse” lets you manually select the signature image from your device.
Lastly, “Type” helps you to type your sign in with fancy lettering provided in Docdown.

STEP 3: Fill in your full name and email address

Insert email and name — Fill in your email and name.

STEP 4: Click Submit

Submit the signature — Click on “Submit” after you are done

STEP 5: A download page will appear after you hit submit. Wait for the download button and when it loads, hit download.

Click Download Button — Use the download button to download your PDF

STEP 6: Open your downloaded PDF to see it with a sign

Signing a document from Docdown is one of the simplest ways to go about doing it. Not to mention, you can directly send Docdown links to people you want signs from. If you learn how to write into PDFs in the first place, you can easily sign them with Docdown.

Sign Word Document Online Free

In the end, we will look at one of the easiest ways to sign a Word document; Uploading it to a third-party site like Digisigner and re-downloading it. Digisigner is a website that lets you sign Word, PDF, and image files. Here’s how to use it. However, exercise caution while uploading sensitive documents to third-party websites or free services.

STEP 1: Open the Digisigner website using its URL or with a google search.

STEP 2: Click on choose file, select the document you want signed and click on “Open”

Choose file to upload — Click “choose file”

Open desired file — Open the file you want

STEP 3: Digisigner opens the document you uploaded. The moment it does, click anywhere on the document you want your sign to be.

Document Opened with digisigner — Click anywhere to sign

STEP 4: The familiar window that gives you Upload, Draw and Type options opens. Do your thing here and click on “sign” when you are done.

Drawn Sign Example — You can either draw, upload or type your sign

STEP 5: Click on “done” if the sign is where you want on the document.

STEP 6: Digisigner automatically opens a page from where you can download your document with a sign. After, Click “Download Document” to get your newly signed document.

Digisigner download page image — Click on the “download document” button

After signing a PDF, you might need to upload them into Google Drive or similar services using APIs and Webhooks, if that’s you, check out our link that helps you do just that!

Our tutorial covers all of the relevant applications and techniques used to sign documents. If you followed our tutorial diligently, we bet that you can now add a signature to your Word document and make it look professional with ease. If you’re someone who frequently works with repetitive PDFs and word documents, we recommend automating it all with Docdown.

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