E-signatures

Initials on every page

A twelve page lease traditionally wants a set of initials in the corner of each page, so nobody can quietly swap page seven later. Producing twelve marks by hand is tedious. Producing one and having it land twelve times is not.

Send a document for signingHow the initials field differs from a signature, and how a signer works through a dozen of them
Two initials fields side by side at the foot of page two of a tenancy agreement, one for each renter, in their own colours
Page two of three. Each renter has their own initials box, and one drawn mark fills every box that belongs to them.

It is a signature field in a smaller box

Initials arrive 80 points wide by 50 tall, against 200 by 60 for a full signature. The stamper treats both the same way: the captured image is scaled to fit inside the box while keeping its proportions, then drawn left aligned with a thin rule underneath. Nothing forces the mark to be short. If somebody draws their whole name in an initials box, it shrinks to fit rather than being cut off.

One mark, placed once, applied everywhere

The signer produces a single image, whether by drawing or typing, and it fills every signature, initials and signature block field on the document at the same moment. There is no separate initials capture step. That is what makes page-by-page initialling practical: the cost to the signer is the same whether you asked for one corner or fourteen.

Walking the signer through them

With more than one place to sign, the portal header turns into a counter reading Signature 1 of 13. Pressing it scrolls the next spot into the middle of the screen and rings it for a moment so it is obvious which one you are looking at, then advances and wraps around at the end. It is the difference between a signer scrolling a twelve page PDF hunting for boxes and a signer pressing one button repeatedly.

Initials count as signing

An envelope will not go out unless each signer has a signature, an initials or a signature block field somewhere. Initials satisfy that check, so a document that only ever asks a party to initial is a valid envelope. In practice you almost always want both: initials on every page, and a full signature block on the execution page where the parties are named.

Placing them without going mad

Fields are placed page by page, so a twelve page document means twelve drops. Pick a consistent corner and use the page edge as your guide, since the box is clamped inside the page and cannot be dragged off it. Position is stored in points against the real page size recorded at upload, so the corner you chose on page one is the same corner on page twelve even if the pages differ slightly in size.

How it works, in three steps

  1. Step 1

    Select the signer whose initials these are

    The colour on each box tells you who it belongs to, which matters when two parties both initial every page.

  2. Step 2

    Drop one on each page

    Drag Initials from the palette onto the same corner of each page. The box cannot leave the page, so the edge is a reliable guide.

  3. Step 3

    Let the counter do the work at signing time

    The signer adds one mark and the header button steps them through every spot in order to confirm each one.

Limits worth knowing

Questions people ask

Can the initials be different from the signature?

No. One image per signer per envelope is captured and reused in every spot, which is what makes initialling a long document quick.

Do initials prove the page was not swapped?

They are the traditional habit for it. In practice the stronger evidence here is the certificate, which records the hash of the document at the moment each person signed.

What if a page has no room in the corner?

Resize the box. The minimum is 12 points in each direction, and the ink scales to whatever box you leave.

Make your own signing flow

The button opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match yours, generate, then edit anything you like.

Send a document for signing

Related pages

More finished work of this kind is on the e-signature examples hub.