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SignClearly

Guide

How to sign your own PDF online and prove when you signed it

To sign your own PDF with SignClearly, upload it, place the signature, date and name fields, choose “Me” on the recipient step and sign in your account. No email goes out. The signed PDF ends with a certificate page and an event log with times in UTC taken from the server, and a platform seal lets Adobe Acrobat show whether the file changed after you signed.

Updated 28 Oct 2026

When signing your own PDF fits

Some documents need only your signature: a statement you make, an acknowledgment you return, a letter of authorization you give someone, or an offer you sign before you send it. You can put a signature image on a PDF in any editor, but the image says nothing about when it got there. SignClearly records each step of the signing and seals the result.

Each document has one signer. A contract that you and the other party must both sign on the same document is not supported. For documents someone else signs, see how to send a PDF for signature.

How to sign your own PDF, step by step

  1. Sign in with your email address. SignClearly sends you a one-time sign-in link, so there is no password.
  2. Create a document and upload the PDF, up to 20 MB and 100 pages. The server checks the file and records its SHA-256 fingerprint before anything else happens.
  3. Place the fields. You need at least one signature field. Add a date field and a full name field where the document has lines for them.
  4. On the “Who should sign?” step, choose “Me”. Set the time to finish signing, from 1 to 30 days. After that the document expires and can no longer be signed.
  5. On the review step, click “Sign now” and confirm. This is when the credits leave your balance.
  6. The signing page opens in your account. Agree to sign electronically, draw your signature, enter your full name, review the final PDF with its certificate page, confirm that you intend to sign, and sign.
  7. Download the signed PDF from the document page. You get one email when it is ready.

If you close the signing page before you finish, open the document and click “Continue signing”. That does not use credits again.

You do not type the date. The server fills in the date field with the current date in UTC, written like 2026-10-28, and the name field with the full name you entered on the signing page.

What it costs

Signing your own document costs the same as sending one by email. If the document expires before you sign it, or you revoke it, the credits go back to your balance. There is no decline button for your own document: revoke it instead. Current prices are on pricing.

A send with an ID check costs more. Signing your own document never includes an ID check, so it costs the same as a send without one.

What SignClearly records

Each step goes into the document's event log with the time in UTC, who acted and the IP address. For a document you sign yourself, the log shows:

  • document created and PDF uploaded;
  • self-signing started;
  • opened;
  • consent given;
  • signed;
  • signed PDF created;
  • downloaded, when you download it.

Before you sign, the log also records that SignClearly's certificate authority issued a certificate for your browser key.

Each event stores the SHA-256 of the event before it, so changing or removing an earlier entry breaks the chain. Each event also gets an HMAC made with a key kept outside the database. The audit trail guide explains both.

The certificate page

The last page of the signed PDF is the certificate page. You appear as both the sender and the signer. The page shows the SHA-256 of the original file, the signing method “Account owner, signed in with a link sent to the account email”, “Second factor: None”, your IP address and browser, and the time the final file was prepared for your review. Below that is the event log up to that moment.

The log in the PDF stops there because you review this exact file before you sign, and its content does not change afterwards. The time you clicked to sign is in the event log on the document page in your account.

The seal

After you sign, SignClearly seals the final file with its platform seal. Adobe Acrobat and Reader use it to show whether the file changed after signing. The seal stands for SignClearly, not for a person.

The PDF also carries your own digital signature, made with a one-time key created in your browser. The certificate for that key carries your email address.

What the record proves about the time

What it shows

  • When each step happened, by SignClearly's server clock in UTC. The times come from the server, not from your computer, and you cannot edit them.
  • The order of the steps: upload, consent, review and signature. An entry changed or removed later would break the hash chain.
  • Which file you signed. The SHA-256 of the original is on the certificate page, and the signed PDF is the exact file you reviewed.
  • Whether the signed PDF changed after SignClearly sealed it. Adobe Acrobat and Reader check this.
  • That you did not pick the date. The server fills in the date field.

These times rest on SignClearly's clock and records. The hash chain, the HMAC and the seal make later edits visible, but anyone who relies on the times also trusts that SignClearly recorded them correctly in the first place.

Outside timestamps leave less of this resting on SignClearly. The seal carries a timestamp from an independent RFC 3161 time-stamping authority, which signs the time together with a fingerprint of the sealed file. It shows that the signed PDF existed in exactly this form no later than that time, by the authority's clock. Adobe Acrobat shows the timestamp in the signature properties.

Your browser-key signature carries a timestamp of its own from the same authority.

Once a day, SignClearly also gets a timestamp for a fingerprint of the event chain. After that, rewriting an earlier event would no longer match the timestamped fingerprint. SignClearly keeps these daily tokens. They are not inside your PDF.

What it does not show

  • When the text was written or when anyone agreed to it. A date typed into the body of the document is just text. The record covers when you signed in SignClearly.
  • That you did not sign another copy of the same text at another time, on paper or anywhere else.
  • Who was at the keyboard. Signing your own document shows that someone was signed in to your account, which opens with a link sent to your email. There is no ID check, and the signature is a simple electronic signature (SES).
  • That anyone will accept it. That depends on the country and the type of document. Some documents need a witness, a notary or a handwritten signature.

How to make the record more useful

  • Keep the PDF you uploaded. Its SHA-256 should match the one on the certificate page. The audit trail guide shows how to compute it on a Mac or on Windows.
  • Download the signed PDF as soon as it is ready and keep it next to the original.
  • If the time of signing matters to someone else, send them the signed PDF soon after you sign. Their copy and their mail server's records are evidence that SignClearly does not hold.
  • Convert UTC to your time zone before you compare times with emails or calls. Near midnight UTC, the date in the date field can differ from your local date.
  • Do not edit the signed PDF. If anything in it changes, Adobe Acrobat shows that the document was changed after signing. Check a signed PDF explains how to read that.

Have a PDF that needs a signature?

Sign in with your email, upload the file and send the link.

Send a document