Signing PDFs Digitally vs Print-and-Scan — Why Digital Wins

The Print-and-Scan Problem

You receive a PDF that needs your signature. The old way looks like this:

1. Open the PDF on your computer
2. Print it out
3. Find a pen
4. Sign the paper
5. Walk to the scanner (if you even have one)
6. Scan the signed document
7. Save the scanned file
8. Email it back

This process takes 10-15 minutes on a good day. If you do not have a printer and scanner at home, it could mean a trip to an office supply store or a library. It wastes paper, ink, time, and energy — all to produce a lower-quality document than what you started with.

There is a better way.

The Digital Alternative

Signing a PDF digitally means adding your signature directly to the electronic file without ever printing it. The entire process takes under a minute:

1. Open a browser-based tool like SigPDF
2. Upload your PDF
3. Draw your signature
4. Place it on the document
5. Download the signed PDF

No printer. No scanner. No paper. No wasted time.

Head-to-Head Comparison

Speed

Print-and-scan: 10-15 minutes minimum, assuming you have a printer and scanner readily available. If you need to wait for a printer to warm up, find paper, or troubleshoot a scanner, it can easily take 20-30 minutes.

Digital signing: Under 60 seconds. Upload, sign, download. Done.

Winner: Digital signing, by a wide margin.

Cost

Print-and-scan: Printer ink is surprisingly expensive — the average cost per printed page is around $0.05-0.10 for black and white and $0.15-0.25 for color. Add paper costs, printer maintenance, and the cost of owning a scanner. Over a year, these costs add up quickly for anyone who signs documents regularly.

Digital signing: Affordable. Tools like SigPDF are free to use for placing signatures, with downloads from €2.08/month. There is no hardware to maintain and no consumables to replace.

Winner: Digital signing.

Document Quality

Print-and-scan: Every time you print and scan a document, you lose quality. Text becomes slightly blurry, images degrade, and the scan may introduce shadows, skew, or uneven lighting. If the recipient prints and scans it again for their records, the quality degrades further. After a few rounds of print-scan cycles, documents can become difficult to read.

Digital signing: The original PDF quality is preserved perfectly. Your signature is added as a vector or high-resolution element directly into the file. The text remains crisp, images stay sharp, and the file size stays reasonable.

Winner: Digital signing.

Environmental Impact

Print-and-scan: Uses paper, ink cartridges (which contain plastic and chemicals), and electricity to run the printer and scanner. Multiply this by the billions of documents signed each year worldwide, and the environmental impact is substantial.

Digital signing: Uses a negligible amount of electricity — just what your device already consumes while browsing the web. No paper, no ink, no physical waste.

Winner: Digital signing.

Convenience

Print-and-scan: Requires a printer, scanner, paper, and ink — all in the same location. You cannot sign a document while away from your home office. If you are on a business trip, at a coffee shop, or simply do not own a printer, this method is not practical.

Digital signing: Works anywhere you have a device with a browser. You can sign a PDF on your laptop at a coffee shop, on your phone during a commute, or on a tablet on your couch. SigPDF works on any device with a browser, including phones and tablets.

Winner: Digital signing.

Security

Print-and-scan: A physical document can be left on a printer tray, lost, photographed, or seen by anyone in the vicinity. You also now have a physical copy containing potentially sensitive information that needs to be stored or shredded.

Digital signing: When you use a client-side tool like SigPDF, your document never leaves your device. It is processed entirely in your browser. There is no physical copy to misplace, and no one walking past your desk can glance at the contents.

Winner: Digital signing.

Legal Validity

Print-and-scan: A scanned signature is, technically, also an electronic signature — it is a digital image of your handwritten signature. It is legally valid in most contexts.

Digital signing: Electronic signatures created with digital tools are equally valid under the ESIGN Act, eIDAS, and similar laws worldwide. There is no legal advantage to printing and scanning. For more details, see our guide to e-signature laws by country.

Winner: Tie. Both are legally valid for most documents.

The Full Comparison

| Factor | Print-and-Scan | Digital Signing | |--------|---------------|-----------------| | Speed | 10-15 min | Under 60 seconds | | Cost | Paper + ink + hardware | Free | | Quality | Degrades with each cycle | Preserved perfectly | | Environment | Paper and ink waste | Negligible impact | | Convenience | Need printer/scanner | Any device, anywhere | | Security | Physical copies at risk | Files stay on your device | | Legal validity | Valid | Valid | | File size | Often large (scanned images) | Compact (vector-based) |

When Print-and-Scan Might Still Make Sense

To be fair, there are a few narrow scenarios where printing and scanning could be reasonable:

• Notarized documents — Some notarization processes still require a physical presence and wet ink signature, though remote online notarization (RON) is becoming available in more jurisdictions.
• Certain government forms — A small number of government agencies still require original wet ink signatures for specific filings.
• Personal preference — Some people simply prefer the feel of signing with a pen on paper, and that is a valid choice.

But for the vast majority of everyday document signing — contracts, leases, invoices, HR forms, agreements, and letters — digital signing is objectively better in every measurable way.

How to Make the Switch

If you are still in the habit of printing and scanning, making the switch to digital signing is easy:

1. Next time you receive a PDF to sign, open SigPDF instead of reaching for the printer
2. Upload the PDF by dragging and dropping it
3. Draw your signature — it takes a few seconds
4. Place it on the document and download

That is it. After doing this once, you will wonder why you ever printed documents just to sign them.

Stop Printing, Start Signing

SigPDF makes digital signing effortless. No account, no installation, no server uploads. Just open it in your browser, sign your PDF, and move on with your day. It works on every device and takes less than a minute.

Sign Your PDF Without Printing →