Fill in, sign and send for signature

Sopycat can fill in a PDF form, add boxes to a PDF that doesn't have any, place your handwritten signature or a stamp, and sign with a digital certificate. Everything happens on your computer.

Fill in a form

Open a PDF › Fill in

The Fill in tab shows the form's own boxes: text boxes, multi-line boxes, checkboxes, choices, dropdowns and signature boxes.

1. Open the PDF and choose Fill in.
2. Type your answers and tick the boxes.
3. For a signature box, press Sign and pick or make a signature. Change swaps it and Clear removes it.
4. Press Save or Ctrl+S.

Stop anyone changing the answers

Tick Lock the answers in before you save. The words become part of the page, so nobody can change them later. Leave it off if you still need to edit the form. Signature boxes that haven't been signed yet stay live, so someone can still sign them.

"This PDF has no fill-in boxes": make it fillable

Open a PDF › Fill in › Make it fillable, or Tools › Fill in a form

The PDF was made as a flat page, or scanned, so it has no boxes a reader can type into. Press Make it fillable: Sopycat looks at every page as a picture and proposes a box wherever the form means to be written on.

• A write-on line, solid, dotted or dashed, named by the words to its left or, in a signature block, by the words under it (Print Name, Date).
• Each cell of a table with a label in it (Last Name:), the box in the empty part of the cell.
• A box drawn on its own, and a small square as a checkbox, named by the words beside it.

A label that says Signature makes a signature box, and one that says Date a date box. A scanned page is read first, so its labels name the boxes too. Untick anything that is not really a field, drag a box to adjust it, press Add, then Save: the form comes back to Fill in with its new boxes, and it is a form in any PDF reader. Sopycat finds the usual layouts; a box it missed can be drawn on the Fields tab.

Rather type straight onto the page? Use Mark up › Type on the page.

Fill the same details again and again

Open a PDF › Fill in › Profiles, on the left

A profile is a saved set of answers, such as your company details or a client's name and address.

1. Fill in a form once.
2. Press Save these answers as a profile… and give it a name, for example the company or client.
3. Next time, open Fill from a profile and pick it. Matching boxes fill themselves in, and the message names any detail in the profile that found no box on this form.

A detail of your own, under Something else a form asks for, fills a box whose name, or the label printed beside it, matches its words. Opened from a form, the box lists that form's own boxes as you type.

Manage profiles… lets you edit or remove them. Profiles are kept in your library folder, so if your office shares a library, everyone who uses it shares the profiles too.

Add form fields to a PDF

Open a PDF › Fields

Turn any PDF into a form others can fill in, in Sopycat or in any PDF reader.

Let Sopycat find the boxes

1. Choose Find the boxes on this page, or Find the boxes on every page.
2. Sopycat looks for the boxes and lines on the page and tells you how many it found.
3. Press Add to turn them into fields.

Draw the fields yourself

1. Choose a field type: Text box, Date, Checkbox, Choice, Dropdown or Signature.
2. Drag on the page where it should go.
3. With Select, click a field to change it.

Choice boxes placed one after another answer one question, so someone filling in the form picks one of them. Choose Choice again to start the next question. A box's Group says which question it belongs to, offers the groups already on the form, and says how many boxes it has. A name keeps accented letters; a name another field already has is pointed out, as it is saved with a number after it.

Each field has options: a Name, the choices for a dropdown (one per line), Allow typing something else, a Group for choices that answer one question, Several lines, Must be filled in, and Remove. Fields are written into the file when you save.

Sign several PDFs at once

Sidebar › Tools › Sign a PDF

The Sign a PDF page has only the signing tools: Signature, Type on the page and Sign with a certificate. Drop the PDFs on it, or press Choose files…. Sign the first one and press Save; Sopycat then offers Sign the other files, which puts the same signature in the same place on each of them. Each file's original is kept under Versions. Fill in a form works the same way, with only the form's own boxes.

Sign with your handwriting

Open a PDF › Mark up › Signature

1. Choose Signature. The Your signatures window opens.
2. Choose Draw to sign with the mouse or a pen, or Type to type your name in one of four handwriting styles.
3. Choose Full signature or Initials.
4. Press Keep and use. Clear starts the drawing again.
5. Click the page where the signature goes, then save.

Signatures you keep are listed under Saved. Next time, press Use beside one. Sopycat keeps up to 12, on this computer only. They don't travel with a shared library.

You can also sign from a form's signature box: Fill in › Sign.

Stamp a page

Open a PDF › Mark up › Stamp

Ready-made stamps: Approved, Draft, Confidential, Received, Reviewed, Final, Void, Copy, Sign here and Paid. Received, Reviewed and Paid add the date.

To use your own stamp, such as a company seal, go to Your pictures › Add a picture… and pick a PNG or JPEG. Your own stamps are kept on this computer.

Picture signature or certificate signature?

Sign with a certificate

Open a PDF › More › Sign with a certificate…

1. Choose your Certificate file (.pfx or .p12) and enter its Passphrase.
2. Add a Reason and Location if you like. Both are optional.
3. Tick Show a signature box on the page to place a visible box. Leave it off and the signature is invisible on the page; readers see it in their signature panel.
4. Press Sign.

I don't have a certificate

Choose I don't have one: make a self-signed certificate, enter your name, an email if you like, and a passphrase to protect it, then press Make and use it. A self-signed certificate is fine for signing inside your own office. People outside it see the signature as valid but not issued by an authority they trust. For that, buy a certificate from a provider.

Check the signatures on a PDF

Open a PDF › More › Signatures…

A signed PDF shows a Signed chip in the toolbar, or Signature problem if something is wrong. Signatures… shows, for each signature, whether the content is exactly what was signed, whether anything was added after signing, and whether the certificate was valid. It doesn't check whether the signer's certificate comes from an authority your office trusts, because Sopycat keeps no certificate store.

Send a PDF for someone else to sign

Open a PDF › More › Prepare a copy for someone to sign…

1. Add signature boxes on the Fields tab if the PDF doesn't have them, and save.
2. Choose Prepare a copy for someone to sign….
3. Choose where to save it. The name ends in "- for signature.pdf".
4. Send that file to the person who needs to sign it.

In the copy, the answers are locked in, and the signature boxes stay live and are tinted "Sign here". The copy is locked against changes with a strong lock, but the person can still fill in, sign, print and copy from it.

Which of these follow me to another computer?

• Form profiles: yes, they're in the library folder.
• Saved signatures and your own stamps: no, they stay on the computer where you made them.