The old way of getting someone's signature on a PDF goes like this: email the file, they print it, sign it, scan it (or photograph it at an angle on the kitchen table), and email it back. Multiply by three people and you've lost a week.
Request signature on EddiesPDF replaces that loop. You upload the PDF, mark where each person signs, and each of them gets an email with a private link. They sign in their browser, on a phone or a computer, without creating an account. When everyone's done, you download one PDF with all the signatures on it.
It's free and fine for everyday paperwork. It's not the right tool for every contract, and I'll be specific about where the line is further down.
This tool stores your PDF on our server
Almost everything else on EddiesPDF runs in your browser and never uploads your file. Request signature can't work that way. The people signing are on different devices, possibly in different countries, and they need to open the same document from a link. So when you send a request, the PDF is uploaded and stored on our server.
Two practical consequences. First, there's a 4 MB limit per PDF. Second, think about what's in the document before you send it. If it contains things the signers don't need to see, cut those pages out first with Delete pages or Redact PDF.
Sending a document for signature
- Open Request signature and add your PDF (4 MB at most).
- Fill in "Your name" and "Your email". Recipients see your name in the email, and the updates come to that address.
- Under "Recipients", add each person's name and email and choose a role: "Signer", "Validator" or "Witness". Use + Add recipient for the next person. You can add up to 50.
- Optionally fill in "Subject", "Message" and "Deadline".
- Select a recipient, pick a field type and click on the page where it goes. Repeat for each person.
- Click Send for signature.
The fields you can place are "Signature", "Initials", "Text", "Date", "Name", "Email" and "Checkbox". Each field belongs to one recipient and takes that person's colour, so you can see at a glance who fills in what. Drag a field to move it, drag its corner to resize. Every recipient needs at least one field, otherwise there'd be nothing for them to do.
A word on the deadline: it's a reminder of when you'd like it back, not a hard cutoff. People can still sign after that date.
The message is worth filling in. "Hi Sam, here's the quote we talked about on Tuesday, please sign page 3" gets a much faster response than a bare system email from an address they've never seen.
What the people signing see
Each recipient gets an email with their own private link. It opens the document in the browser. They fill in the fields you placed for them, then press Submit. No app to install, no account, no password to make up.
This works on phones, which is where most people will open the email anyway. Signing with a finger on a phone screen is fine; it doesn't have to look like a fountain pen.
Tracking it and getting the signed PDF
You get an email as people sign. The status page shows how far along you are ("2 of 3 recipients have signed so far") so you can chase the one who hasn't.
Once everyone has signed, click "Generate Signed PDF". That builds the final document with every field filled in, which you download and keep. Save it somewhere sensible, and send a copy to the others if they'll want one.
When you need a dedicated e-signature service instead
Request signature collects signatures. It does not produce an audit trail or a certificate of completion, the extra page that services like DocuSign or Adobe Acrobat Sign attach, recording each signer's email, IP address, timestamps and a tamper check on the document.
That record exists for disputes. If the other side later says "I never signed that", an audit trail is your evidence of who opened the link, from where and when.
So the rule is roughly this. For agreements where you might one day have to prove who signed and when, use a dedicated e-signature service. That includes property sales and purchases, employment contracts in countries with formal rules about them, financial agreements, and anything in a regulated industry like healthcare or finance where your compliance team has opinions. If you're not sure whether your contract falls into that group, assume it does and ask.
For everyday things between people who know each other, it's fine: a school permission slip, a freelance quote the client approves, a lease renewal with a landlord you've dealt with for years, a club membership form, an internal sign-off. These are documents where everyone agrees what happened, and what you mostly need is the signed copy.
Small things that save a resend
- Check every email address twice before sending. A typo means the request goes nowhere, and you won't always find out quickly.
- Tell people it's coming. A message from an unfamiliar address with "please sign" in the subject looks a lot like phishing, so a quick text ("you'll get an email from EddiesPDF, check spam if it's not there") saves days.
- If your PDF is over 4 MB, run it through Compress PDF first. Scanned documents are usually the culprit, and the "Good" setting often gets them under the limit without hurting the text.
- Put signature fields where a signature actually belongs. If the document has a printed "Signature: ____" line, place the field on that line so the final PDF looks like a normal signed page.
Also useful: Fill & sign · Compress PDF
