How to sign a document on your phone

People are not next to a printer. They are on a train, in a field, in a meeting that should have ended. If signing needs a desktop and a plugin from 2012, you lose. You get 'I'll do it tonight' and then it is August.

An adult link opens the document in the mobile browser, shows the field, and lets you tag. Zoom is your friend. Read what sits above the field, not only the field. On a small screen it is easy to say yes to the wrong page.

If the tool forces an app-store app, that is friction you should be paying for, or a no. SES does not require an icon on the home screen.

Safari and Chrome treat PDFs differently. If the field does not show, switch browser before you shout at the sender. Often it is the reader, not the file.

A finger works. It looks ugly. Legally, ugly is irrelevant. If you will show the PDF to a human who gets uneasy about mess, type the name clearly instead. Or tap 'I accept' if that is what the field is.

Uploading a PNG sitting in Photos is the worst phone variant: easy to send the wrong image, easy to believe the picture is 'your signature forever'. An act in the flow, logged, beats the relic.

A stylus is comfort. It does not make QES. It makes you feel like 1998, which calms some clients. Use it then. Do not call it security.

Dark mode can make white text in a PDF unreadable. That is not a law problem. It is a turn-the-lights-on problem. Read anyway.

Scroll. All the way. Termination, liability, dates. If you cannot read it, you are not ready to sign — any tool. Ask for the PDF by email and read it somewhere you can see, or refuse to tag in a stairwell.

A phone is bad for comparing two versions. If you suspect they sent something other than what you discussed, wait until you have a screen. SES binds you even when you were tired and the thumb was fast.

A screenshot is not an archive. Download the finished file when you get it. PAdES in the file does not survive a screenshot in chat.

Do not sign in an Uber with a stranger watching the screen. SES is a yes. A yes can be private. That is not paranoia; that is ordinary people.

As a recipient you should rarely have to create an account to see a contract someone sent you. If you must, that is the vendor's business model, not the law. An email code is a compromise: annoying, less porous than a naked link.

BankID on the phone is familiar and heavy. Right when the sender needs high-assurance identity. Wrong when it is an NDA for a podcast clip. Say so if you do not have BankID — for example if you are not in Norway.

Do not type a BankID password into a field that looks like a signature. That sounds obvious. People do it when they are stressed and the UI resembles something they saw at the bank.

Do not sign in the margin 'by eye' and hope. Ask the sender to move the field. A tag outside the agreed field is mess in the evidence and in the head of whoever archives.

A skewed scanned PDF is the sender's problem. They should send a readable file. You are not obliged to decipher a photo of a photo of a printout.

If the browser dies mid-sign: open the link again. Do not draw in a random app and mail a JPEG. Then you are back in 2014.

The confirmation, the signed PDF, and a cool head. Check your name is right. A wrong name in an autocompleted field is embarrassing and is fixed with a new job, not with 'everyone understands'.

If Acrobat on a desktop later shows a yellow triangle, that is often CA trust, not the phone wrecking the file. Read up on PAdES before you panic.

You signed with SES unless it said BankID/QES. That is enough for most. It is not a passport. Do not hang it in an open Instagram story.

Face ID unlocks the phone. It is not a signature on the PDF. Mix them and you think you have QES because you have a face. You have a lock.

A screen recording or screenshot of the field is not an archive. They are pictures. Download the file. Shared family devices: sign out of the email that got the code. SES on a living-room iPad is how a sibling can become 'you' in the log.

Four percent battery is not an argument for skipping clause 7. Wait. A thumb in a stairwell is how you accept a notice period you will hate next week.