Add your signature to a Word document or create a new electronic signature to sign your Word documents, online or offline.
Add your signature to a Word document or create a new electronic signature to sign your Word documents, online or offline.
Many documents that are created with Microsoft Word require a signature. Be it cover letters, newsletters, contracts, or forms; a signature completes the file. Electronic signatures, especially handwritten ones, are great to personalize your content and make things official.
However, you can’t create a signature directly from Microsoft Word. Instead, here are a few ways to insert a signature in Word documents.
How To Insert Signature in Word—From Scanned Files
To insert a handwritten signature in your Word document, follow the steps below:
- Scan your signature with a scanner and send it to your computer.
- Drag and drop the image file into your Word document.
- Or click Insert > Pictures > Picture from File... to insert the signature in Word.
Pro Tip: If you need to resize or crop the scanned signature, use your local image reader to crop it. Cropping is a universal functionality that all image-viewing software, such as Preview on Mac or Photo Viewer on Windows, have.
How to scan and insert signature in Word
How To Insert Signature Line in Word
If you’re old school and would like to print out the document with a line for the recipient to know where to sign rather than place an electronic signature in Word, follow the steps below to create a signature line:
- Open the Word document.
- Click Insert > Signature Line > Microsoft Office Signature Line.
- Type in the signee’s name and title so they know where to sign.
How To Insert Signature in Word—via PDF
You should never share a document to be signed in Word, as the content of your document could be easily altered and tampered with. This isn’t only detrimental to the security of your data but also the signee’s. Even if you trust the recipient, sending a contract as a Word document for signing can look quite unprofessional.
The best way to sign digital documents is actually to use a PDF file. There are many tools to electronically sign PDF documents and ensure your content is safe from being copied, analyzed, and altered.
Smallpdf has a method to create or import your signature via our online platform and sign your document! Here’s how it’s done:
How To Insert Signature in Word via PDF
Save your Word file as a PDF by clicking ”Save As” or use the free Word to PDF converter on our site.
Access our eSign PDF tool. If you had used the Smallpdf Word to PDF tool, simply hit “eSign” on the result page.
Click “Your Signature” to either create your signature or import your scanned signature.
Drag the signature to the signature line and change its color and size as you wish.
If someone else needs to sign, click “Invite signees” to send the file to them.
Otherwise, click “Finish & Sign” to insert your signature to Word (in PDF format).
Download or print your file to save the document.
Electronic signature in Word or PDF with Smallpdf
The Most Popular Online PDF Software
Keeping the document in a PDF format will make it easier and safer for you to share it with other people without it being tampered with or changed. If you need to convert it back to Word, use our PDF to Word tool. Otherwise, here are a few other tools for you to keep working on your document:
- Protect - Encrypt the signed file with a password.
- Delete Pages - Remove needless pages.
- Compress - Get the signed document to an email-ready size.
- Reader - View your file offline.
- Converter - Save PDF to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, or JPG.
And many more!
Regardless of your document’s format, the process to create, insert, and sign documents should be as seamless and effective as possible. We hope this guide helps simplify your workflow and enhance your productivity, in and out of the office!
Less work, more play!
