Got a PDF you need to sign? One of the Mac’s niftiest tricks is its ability to snap a photo of your signature and paste it onto the dotted line of any PDF, but now there’s an even easier way for your iMac or MacBook to capture your John Hancock.
Thanks to the new Yosemite update, you can use your Mac’s trackpad to trace your signature with your fingertip, perfect for signing a PDF without having to put pen to paper.
Just click on a saved signature to paste it into a PDF.
Here’s how it works…
- Launch the Preview app (you’ll find it in the Applications folder, or just search for it using Spotlight), click the Tools menu, select Annotate, Signature, click Manage Signatures, then Create Signature.
- A new window will appear with two tabs at the top: Trackpad (for tracing your signature with your Mac’s trackpad) and Camera (for snapping a photo of your signature). Go ahead and select the Trackpad tab, then click the “Click Here to Begin” button.
- Now, just trace your signature on the trackpad, then press any key when you’re done. Happy with the result? Click the Done button, or click Clear to try again.
- Once you click Done, your signature will be saved in the Signatures menu. From now on, you can simply click on a signature to paste it into a PDF. Just drag the pasted signature onto the appropriate dotted line, and use the little blue handles to resize the signature if needed.
Bonus tip
Want to make the Signatures menu appear in the Preview toolbar? Click the View menu, then select Show Markup Toolbar. The Signature button is the one marked with a little squiggly; just click it, select a signature, then drag and drop it wherever it needs to go.