There are lots of reasons why you’d want to remove a digital or electronic signature from a signed PDF on your Mac or Windows PC. You might notice a typo, might want to make the signed PDF look more professional with a new layout design, or maybe you want to use it as a template so everybody can add or fill in new items. Whatever your reason, removing someone else’s digital signature seems to be complicated, just like a whole beast to you, but there are specialized app to get the job done, even, we can use online free tools to remove some simple signature from a PDF.
Ultimate App to Remove Any Digital Signature from A PDF on Mac and Windows
Which app you choose to remove the PDF signature will largely depend on how often you deal with PDF files and how much you want to pay. The more you have, the more you will benefit from such a tool, though it may comes at a price. If you have looked into the electronic signatures on a PDF, you will know that the signature inserted as an image in your PDF can be easily removed, while the signature with a certificated ID is quite complicated to be deleted, also, we may have signatures in a scanned PDF or a protected PDF, Adobe Acrobat is the ultimate app that remove all these types of signature.
It offers plentiful of tools, so you won’t need to install extra plugin or app to do other jobs. It is professional and gives customizable options, but it is still simple to use and get your requests done in seconds within one or several clicks. It is perfect for business workflow, there are tools for efficient review, file compare, signature and submission, running an unlimited number of automatic tasks quickly and reliably.
Easily remove a digital signature from PDF in Adobe Acrobat if the signature is just an image
- Fire up Adobe Acrobat on your computer.
- Open the PDF.
- Head to Edit, select the signature image and Delete.
- Hit Save.
Remove electronic signature from a scanned PDF
- Open the scanned PDF in Acrobat.
- Head to Edit and OCR will be started automatically on your PDF, the texts and images will be selectable.
- Select the signature, right click to Delete.
- Hit Save button.
Remove signature block/field from PDF for some else to sign
- Fire up Adobe Acrobat on your computer.
- Open the PDF.
- Head to All tools>Prepare a form.
- Select the signature block or field, then right click to Delete.
- Hit Save button.
Can’t remove signature from PDF? Use Acrobat to remove someone else’s electronic signature that is locked
Scenario one, the file is locked
- Open the locked PDF and enter your password.
- Then go to All tools>Protect a PDF>Remove security.
- Then follow above steps to remove signature from your PDF.
Scenario two, the signature is locked with an ID
You won’t be able to remove the signature if it is locked with an ID, you should ask for a copy from the signer without signature and edit the file as you like, or just the create the PDF again.
How to Remove Digital Signature from PDF on Mac
One of the reasons that gained Apple a considerable market grip is that it comes pre-loaded with some useful productivity tools, like Preview. That’s why Mac users will first come to Preview whenever they run into a PDF issue. We can use Preview to remove or erase a signature from both native and scanned PDF, but this process takes much longer time than that using Acrobat.
- Open PDF in Preview.
- Show markup toolbar, and choose a rectangular shape, choose border color as None and select fill color as White.
- Then move the white shape to the signature and cover it.
- Head to File>Save.
Remove Electronic Signature from PDF Online Free
Guess you just don’t want to run into a paywall and install an app to remove someone else’s signature from a PDF, right off the bat comes with online free tools for you.
Though online free PDF tools have both free and premium account, you can remove simple signature from several PDFs just with a free tier. Sejda and Google Docs is picked here to remove a image signature from your PDF, to remove signature block or delete signature with ID, go back to Acrobat.
Sejda
what really sets Sejda PDF Editor apart is its polished interface and great PDF editing feature, which is perfect to edit the text, image, link in the file. Also, you can use it to remove a image signature from PDF.
- Navigate to sejda.com/pdf-editor.
- Upload the file.
- Click on Image icon, then select the signature image, click the Trash bin icon to delete.
- Apply changes and save the file to your computer.
Google Docs
The last option to remove signature from a PDF is Google Docs. While most online free PDF editors work in similar ways, the steps of using this tool are as easy as follows:
- Log into your Google Drive, upload the file.
- Right click the PDF thumbnail and open with Google Docs.
- Select the signature and delete it.
- Head to File>Download as>PDF.
Best Way to Remove Electronic Signature from PDF
The best option in my opinion really is to use a dedicated app like Adobe Acrobat, just take a look at the steps we listed for you and grab a 7-day free trial to remove on your computer, as it provides the easiest and most all-rounded methods to remove a PDF signature.