Signature Generator
Draw your signature with a mouse, finger or stylus, type your name in a handwriting font, or clean up a photo of your signature on paper, then save it as a transparent PNG or SVG for PDFs, documents and emails.
How to Use
- Choose Draw, Type or Upload.
- Draw: sign in the box with a mouse, a finger or a stylus. Lines get thinner when you move fast, like real ink, and follow the pressure of a pen that reports it. Undo removes the last stroke (Ctrl+Z).
- Type: enter your name and pick one of 14 handwriting fonts. Upload: drop a photo or scan of your signature on white paper; the paper is removed automatically, and the threshold can be set by hand.
- Pick the ink colour and the output height. The result is cropped to the signature with a small margin.
- Download a transparent PNG for documents, an SVG for sharp scaling, a JPG with a white background, or copy the PNG and paste it straight into a document.
Worked Example
A drawn signature, sized for a document. The pad is 1,000 units wide whatever the screen, so a signature drawn on a phone and on a monitor come out the same. Say the ink spans 620 × 180 units. The margin is 10% of the larger of the height and a quarter of the width: 10% × max(180, 155) = 18 units on every side, so the picture is 656 × 216 units. For the 300 px “documents” size the scale is 300 ÷ 216 = 1.389 px per unit, and the PNG is 656 × 1.389 = 911 × 300 px. Printed at 300 DPI that is 3.04 × 1.00 in, about the width of a signature line.
Natural ink. With pen width 3 the base width is w₀ = 3 × 1.6 = 4.8 units. A slow stroke at 0.5 units/ms is drawn 4.8 × 1.7 ÷ (1 + 0.45 × 0.5) = 6.66 units wide, and a fast flick at 4 units/ms is 4.8 × 1.7 ÷ 2.8 = 2.91 units: thick where you press on, thin on the quick tails, never below 0.45 × w₀ = 2.16.
Cleaning a photo. Each pixel’s brightness is Y = 0.299R + 0.587G + 0.114B. A shadow that darkens one corner of the paper to Y = 150 would pass any fixed threshold that also catches faint ink, so Even out shadows divides by the paper’s own brightness first: a pen stroke of Y = 60 on that shadowed paper becomes 60 ÷ 150 × 255 = 102, while the shadowed paper itself becomes 255. Otsu’s method then picks the threshold that best separates the two groups. The common mistake is a blue or pencil signature photographed in dim light: the ink is barely darker than the paper. Use a dark pen and daylight, or raise the threshold by hand.
Show Work
Formulas
From Ink to Electronic Signatures
Signing your name became the standard way to accept a document as literacy spread; England’s Statute of Frauds of 1677 required certain contracts to be in writing and signed by the party bound by them. The most famous signature in American history is John Hancock’s on the Declaration of Independence in 1776, so large that “John Hancock” became slang for a signature.
Electronic signatures needed laws of their own. In the US, the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (1999), adopted by almost every state, and the federal ESIGN Act (2000) say that a signature or contract cannot be denied legal effect only because it is electronic. The EU’s eIDAS Regulation (No 910/2014) defines three levels: a simple electronic signature, such as a typed name or a pasted image; an advanced one, uniquely linked to the signer; and a qualified one, made with a certified device, which counts the same as a handwritten signature in every member state.
An image of a signature is not the same as a digital signature. A digital signature is cryptographic: a hash of the document is signed with a private key, so any later change to the file breaks it. A signature image proves nothing on its own about who placed it, which is why e-signing services add audit trails, and why you should keep your signature file private.
About This Tool
This tool makes a clean, transparent signature three ways. Drawing records your strokes as vectors, with ink that thins at speed or follows stylus pressure, so the SVG is a true vector and the PNG is sharp at every size. Typing sets your name in one of 14 handwriting fonts, all under the SIL Open Font License and served from this site. Uploading removes the paper from a photo or scan of your real signature, evening out shadows and dropping specks.
Everything runs in your browser. Your signature is never uploaded, logged or stored, and it is gone when you close the tab.
Related tools: PDF Workbench, Image to PDF, and Background Remover & Replacer.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a signature made here legally binding?
An image of your signature placed on a document is a simple electronic signature. In the US the ESIGN Act (2000) and UETA say a signature cannot be refused legal effect just because it is electronic, and in the EU eIDAS (2014) recognises simple electronic signatures too. What makes a signature count is mainly your intent to sign and a record of it, not the picture. Some documents, such as wills or anything to be notarised, may need ink or a certified digital signature, so check when it matters. This is not legal advice.
How do I add the signature to a PDF or Word document?
Save the transparent PNG. In Word, use Insert → Pictures, then set the picture’s text wrapping to “In Front of Text” so you can drag it onto the signature line. In Adobe Acrobat Reader, Fill & Sign → Sign → Add signature lets you choose Image and pick the file. Copy PNG lets you paste it straight into Word, Google Docs and most other editors.
Why PNG and not JPG?
PNG keeps a transparent background, so the signature sits on the document’s own paper colour and over the signature line, the way ink would. A JPG always has a solid background, here white, which shows as a box on anything that is not white. SVG is a vector: it stays sharp at any size and is the best choice for designers and print.
Is my signature uploaded or saved anywhere?
No. Drawing, typing, photo clean-up and saving all run in your browser. The page makes no network request with your signature, nothing is kept after you close the tab, and nothing is written to browser storage. That matters for something that could be misused, so save your file somewhere safe.
How do I get a clean result from a photo?
Sign on plain white paper with a dark pen, fill the frame with the signature and use even light. Leave Even out shadows on for phone photos; it divides each pixel by the brightness of the paper around it, so a shadow across the page does not turn into ink. If thin strokes break up, raise the threshold; if grey paper texture appears, lower it.
How do I use the Signature Generator?
Just pick your options. The answer shows up right away — there is no button to press. Change anything and it updates by itself.
Does it cost anything or need an account?
No. The tool is completely free, there is no account to create, and it keeps working offline after the page first loads.
Is anything I type uploaded?
No. The tool works entirely on your device, so the values you enter never leave your browser.
Common Use Cases
Signing PDFs
Add a transparent signature to a contract, lease or permission form in Acrobat Reader’s Fill & Sign or any PDF editor.
Letters and Word documents
Place the PNG above the printed name on a letter, quote or invoice template once and reuse it.
Email signatures
A 150 px tall PNG is small enough to sit in an email signature next to your name and title.
Digitising an ink signature
Photograph your real signature on paper and turn it into a clean transparent file, with shadows and paper texture removed.
Artists and photographers
Sign artwork, prints and photos with a vector SVG that stays crisp at any size.
Last updated: