collaborative document signing

August 30, 2021 5:53 PM

Is there any way for multiple people to sign a pdf document that's in the cloud?

I'm looking for a way for various people to sign a document for my institute , and there's no budget to buy an app or service.

posted by dhruva to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

If it's only ONE document, you can use DocuSign for one month free. If you need it longer it's $10 a month.

For people who SIGN they don't need an account. You as the sender can probably use the 30 day free trial.
posted by kschang at 6:02 PM on August 30, 2021 [9 favorites]

Best answer: Adobe Sign does this. It isn't free, though - maybe try looking for Google Drive or Dropbox extensions that offer it?
posted by sagc at 6:02 PM on August 30, 2021

DocuSign definitely works well for this (my employer uses it), so if you can get free access, it's worth trying.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 6:04 PM on August 30, 2021

People could open and save the same PDF with Adobe reader, where you can make a digital signature. To avoid corruption issues, you should have people do it in order or something, so that two people don’t try to sign at the same time.
posted by rockindata at 6:14 PM on August 30, 2021

Response by poster: Just to clarify, this will be needed on a monthly basis, it’s not a one off thing. Also the main headache right now is coordinating the order of who signs first and to make sure that there aren’t multiple copies of half signed documents
posted by dhruva at 6:34 PM on August 30, 2021

Best answer: Adobe Sign has some nice features regarding who signs when. I doubt you'll find many free offerings with this level of control; it's the sort of thing with a strong business use case but not so much of a free one.
posted by sagc at 7:18 PM on August 30, 2021

There are so, so many of these services out there, but the trick will be finding one that works for free, forever. PandaDoc's free plan might be suitable for you. I've used it as a paid subscriber and it's pretty good.
posted by tybstar at 5:10 AM on August 31, 2021 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks all, sagc's recommendation of dropbox extension led me to HelloSign, testing it now, and hopefully it will work
posted by dhruva at 9:55 AM on September 1, 2021