How to sign a document electronically when someone sends you one

Someone sent you a contract or an offer letter, and the email says to sign it online. Here's how to sign a document electronically: open the request, agree to sign electronically, read the whole thing, click the marked fields, adopt a signature and press Finish. Then download your copy.

If you searched for how to sign a document online, here's the honest timing: the clicks take two minutes. The two checks around them take longer and matter more: is the request genuine, and do you actually agree with what it says?

Most guides on how to esign a document are written for the sender. This one is for you, the person receiving it. A request from Chaindoc works the same way: Chaindoc's signing flow runs in the browser, with no app to install.

The way a document arrives decides how you sign it. A link from an e-signature service opens a signing page that records your signature along with your email address and the time. An attachment is different: you sign it yourself and send it back, and the only record is whatever you and the sender keep.

So the first question in how to sign a document sent by email is simple. Is there a Review or Sign button, or just a file?

Seven cases cover nearly everything you'll meet. If you're on the other side and need signatures from other people, the sender's side of a signature request has its own guide.

Fake signing requests are a standard phishing format, because everyone has signed one and nobody wants to hold up a deal. DocuSign keeps a running list of campaigns that borrow its name. In July 2023 it reported fake envelopes sent from DocuSign demo accounts, often already completed with the document attached, written to create urgency and extract financial details.

Before you sign a document electronically, or even open it, run through these:

• Did you expect it? A contract you discussed yesterday, yes. An "invoice to sign" from a company you've never dealt with, no.
• The sender's name and the address behind it. A well-known company name on a free webmail address is a warning.
• Where the button really goes. Hover over it, or long-press on a phone, and read the domain.
• Pressure. "Sign within two hours or the offer lapses" is a tactic, not a deadline.
• Requests for your email password or a card number. Signing a document never needs either.

If in doubt, open the service yourself. DocuSign's safety alerts describe the safe route for its emails, summed up in the box below. For a request from someone you know, a quick call settles it.

Honestly, it's the check people skip most, and the one that costs most when skipped.

Signing on a screen makes skimming easy. The fields glow, the button is bright, and the service walks you straight to the next tag. Slow down anyway.

Check these before your first click on a signature field:

1. 1.
   Your name, company and role, spelled correctly.
2. 2.
   Every number: price, fees, deposit, penalties, notice period.
3. 3.
   Dates, including the start, the end, automatic renewal and the last day to cancel.
4. 4.
   Anything the document refers to but doesn't include, such as terms and conditions, a schedule, a price list or a privacy policy. You're agreeing to those too.
5. 5.
   Blank spaces. A field left empty "for the other side to complete later" is a blank check.
6. 6.
   Pages you're asked to initial. Each set of initials says you've read that page.

If the service lets you download the document before signing, do it and read the PDF in your own reader. It's the same text, minus the nudging.

The three services you're most likely to meet when you sign a document electronically look different, but they ask for the same things.

How to sign a DocuSign document

DocuSign says you don't need a DocuSign account to sign a document that was sent through DocuSign. Open the email and select Review Document, agree to sign electronically, then follow the tags through the document. The first signature tag asks you to adopt a signature. Click Finish, and the sender receives the signed document automatically.

Need to say no? Under Other Actions there's Decline to Sign. You give a reason, the round stops for everyone who hasn't signed, and signatures already collected become invalid.

Adobe Acrobat Sign

The Review and sign link opens the agreement in your browser. Fill the required fields, then click to sign. The Options menu may offer Decline or Delegate where the sender's organisation allows them. Declining cancels the agreement, and the sender has to start a new one.

How to sign a Google Doc

A Google Docs request arrives as an email with a link to the document. According to Google's eSignature help page, you click the colored fields marked as yours, fill any text fields, then choose Mark Complete and Agree & Continue. You can also Reject the request, and the requester gets an email saying so. When everyone has signed, Google generates a final PDF that ends with an audit trail page.

One thing trips people up. Only a document's owners and editors can send an eSignature request, and only on Workspace Individual or on certain Google Workspace plans where the administrator has turned it on. If someone just shared an ordinary Doc and asked you to "sign it", there's no signing step. Ask for a real eSignature request, or download the file as PDF and sign that.

No signing link, just a file? You can still sign a document electronically, but now you're both the signer and the person keeping the record.

How to sign a Word document electronically

Word offers two things that both get called a signature. A signature line with your typed name or a picture of your signature is a visible mark, fine for a low-stakes form. A digital signature is cryptographic, and Microsoft's support page is clear that to create one "you have to have a signing certificate, which proves identity." To sign a signature line, right-click it and choose Sign. A digitally signed document becomes read-only, so make your edits first.

Most people don't have a certificate on hand. Then save the file as PDF and sign that, or add an electronic signature to the document through an e-signature service, which records the signing.

A PDF attached to an email

Our guide on how to sign a PDF walks through the Mac, Windows and phone tools. The short version: use a fill-and-sign tool, place the signature, save, and don't re-export the file afterwards.

Sending it back

Reply on the original thread, attach the signed file, and say in one line what you signed and which version. If you changed anything, say so plainly. A signed file that quietly differs from what the sender sent is the start of an argument, not the end of one.

When you sign a document electronically, the law cares less about the form of the signature than most people expect. US federal law defines an electronic signature as an electronic sound, symbol, or process attached to or logically associated with a record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign it. A typed name counts. So does a click on "I agree", if that's what you meant by it.

The general rule in 15 U.S.C. § 7001(a) says a signature or contract can't be denied legal effect just because it's electronic. Two limits matter to you as the signer. Nobody has to accept electronic signatures, so a counterparty can still ask for ink. And some documents sit outside the rule: wills, adoption and divorce papers, court documents and certain notices, such as foreclosure or eviction notices on your home (§ 7003). Asked to sign one of those online? Ask why.

When a signature is challenged, the questions are practical. Did you intend to sign? Was it really you? Is the document the one you signed? Under UETA, which most states have adopted, a signature is attributable to you if it was your act, and that can be shown in any manner, including by the security procedure used. So a service that records your email, the time and a fingerprint of the file helps you as much as the sender.

In the EU, Article 25 of the eIDAS Regulation makes the same point and gives a qualified electronic signature the effect of a handwritten one. Our guides to what makes an electronic signature secure in court and to the qualified electronic signature go further.

Your copy is your evidence. In a disagreement you'll want your own, not a promise that the sender's is identical.

Download two things: the signed document and the record that comes with it. Services name that record differently (certificate of completion, audit trail, history page); it lists who signed, when and from which email address. In Chaindoc both are available once everyone has signed, and the certificate of completion carries the document's hash, so you can show later that the file hasn't changed.

Keep the file exactly as you downloaded it. Printing it to PDF or running it through a converter makes a new file that can look identical and carry none of the signature data. US law expects a record that can be retained and accurately reproduced later (§ 7001(e)), and a re-exported copy works against that.

To check a signed PDF later, open it in a PDF reader that shows signature status, or run it through our PDF signature verification service, which asks you to confirm your email address before it shows the report.

Sometimes the right move is to hold off before you sign a document electronically. The usual cases:

• The link has expired. Links time out for security. Ask the sender to resend.
• The name or email address on the request is wrong. The sender can usually change the recipient; in Chaindoc they can until signing completes.
• You want a change to the text. Decline with a reason, or reply to the sender before you open the signing page. Don't edit an attachment and send it back as if nothing happened.
• Someone else should sign, such as your manager. Adobe Acrobat Sign has a Delegate option where the sender allows it; otherwise tell the sender who the right signer is.
• You're asked for an ID check. That's the sender's choice for higher-stakes documents. In Chaindoc an identity check is optional for each signer, and email verification is enough for a standard signature.
• The sender asks for a qualified electronic signature. You'll authenticate with a national eID or a certificate. In Chaindoc's qualified flow that's an eID such as Smart-ID, Mobile-ID, ID Austria, itsme or Chave Móvel Digital, and the certificate comes from a qualified trust service provider, not from Chaindoc.
• You'd rather sign on paper. That's allowed. Say so early.

Fair warning: declining isn't free of consequences. It usually ends the round for everyone, so a quick message first is often kinder than the button.

Before the last click, all seven should be true:

1. 1.
   I was expecting this request, or I've confirmed it with the sender.
2. 2.
   I opened it from the service's own site or from a link I trust.
3. 3.
   I know what I agreed to on the consent screen.
4. 4.
   I've read every page, and anything the document refers to.
5. 5.
   My name and every number are right, and no field is left blank for later.
6. 6.
   I'm the right person to sign, and an electronic signature suits this document.
7. 7.
   I'll download the signed copy and its record as soon as it's complete.

Seven yeses, then Finish. That's how to sign a document electronically without regretting it later.