Online Freelancing (Part 4): How to add Signature to Documents?

(This article is a part of the Online Freelancing series.)

Whatever business or job you’re in, you need to manage a lot of documents, and the same is true for freelancing. Contracts, agreements, briefs, strategies, invoices, receipts and who knows what else you might need on a day-to-day basis.

And when your clients are somewhere far-off, printing the documents, signing them and then scanning them back for emailing is too much for non-tech-savvy freelancers. So, here’s a quick guide to put your signature on documents without any hassle.

By the way, it will be helpful even if you aren’t a freelancer.

OK, before you start, here’s the checklist –

• A pen, in working condition
• A small white paper (for your signature), non-ruled
• A mobile… smartphone to be precise
• Your PC, and
• A working Internet connection.

I would assume, you have them all nearby. So, here are the steps –

Record the signature

Put your signature down on that white piece of paper, in a clear and a little larger handwriting if possible. You sure won’t like the signature if it is pixelated. (What is that?)

Scan the signature

Now, capture an image using your phone’s camera. But instead of the default camera app, use Camscanner. For those who don’t know, Camscanner is one of the most used mobile applications to scan documents in high quality, for free. (The benefits of Camscanner)

Send it to PC

Now, there are a few different ways you can save the file to your PC. You can use the usual Bluetooth or ShareIt way to send it directly to a PC. I, however, love doing it through the Internet. When the file is small, it doesn’t take much time.

• Sign into Camscanner — You can make an account with Camscanner and have all the scanned documents added to its cloud storage. You can then log into your account at camscanner.com from your PC browser and download the documents anywhere you are.
• Save to your preferred cloud storage — You can share the file with your preferred storage service… Google Drive, Dropbox or whatever else you use on your mobile device. I use Dropbox for most of such transfers, and the desktop app too, has been sweet until now.
• Email it to self — It isn’t one of the fastest ways but for documents, uploading and sending through email has been faster than sharing the same file through Bluetooth/ShareIt. While you wait for the devices to connect, you instead, will receive the email itself, with your file. Download it.

Remove the background

Now, when you have the signature, you are free to insert it in a document you need. Putting the scanned signature with that paper-ish background looks a bit odd however, isn’t it? So, let’s remove that oddity.

Upload the image to Lunapic image editor and then, go to Edit >> Transparent Background to remove the background.

Suggested Read — What are the different ways you can use Lunapic image editor?

And that’s it. Download the edited image and insert it into any document that you have to. Yup, you don’t need a printer and scanner every time, just to insert a signature.

Happy freelancing!