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Digital vs electronic signature

An electronic signature is a picture of your name on the page. A digital signature is a cryptographic seal over the whole file that names who signed it and breaks if anything changes. Almost every free tool gives you the first one. This guide shows how to tell which one you are being asked for.

The short version

Electronic signature is the broad legal term for agreeing to something by electronic means, and a drawing on a page is the everyday example. Digital signature is a technical term for one specific mechanism, public key cryptography applied to the file.

Every digital signature is an electronic signature. Almost no electronic signature is a digital one. The words get used as if they mean the same thing, which is why people end up sending a drawing to somebody who wanted a certificate.

What an electronic signature is

Page content. Your handwriting captured as an image, or your name set in a script typeface, placed on top of the document. It proves nothing on its own, and any reader can copy it out and paste it somewhere else.

What gives it weight is everything around it: the email thread it arrived in, the timestamps, the audit trail a signing service keeps, the fact that you sent it. Courts have settled contracts on far less. The signature is evidence, not proof.

What a digital signature is

A hash of the file is computed and encrypted with a private key that only you hold. The matching public key sits in a certificate that names you and is vouched for by somebody else. Anyone can check the maths without contacting you.

The check answers two questions. Did the person named in the certificate sign this, and has a single byte changed since. It is the second one that surprises people, because it means the signature is bound to that exact file and nothing else.

How a checker tells them apart

Open the document in a reader that understands signatures. A certificate signature appears in a signature panel with a name, a time and a verdict. A drawing appears nowhere, because to the reader it is just ink on the page.

That is also how the person asking will check. If they say the signature did not come through, or that the document shows as unsigned, they are looking at a panel that your drawing was never going to appear in.

What the law says, roughly

In the European Union the eIDAS regulation sets three levels: a simple electronic signature, an advanced one that is uniquely linked to the signer, and a qualified one that needs a certificate from a qualified trust service provider. Only the last has a special legal status across member states.

In the United States the ESIGN Act and UETA make electronic signatures enforceable for most agreements without saying which technology to use. Both systems leave room for a specific counterparty, or a specific type of document, to demand more.

Which one you are being asked for

Ask. It takes one message and it saves a round trip. If the request mentions verification, a certificate, a trust service provider, a qualified signature, or a named signing platform, you need the cryptographic kind.

If the request says sign and return, or the document has a printed signature line on it, a drawing is what everyone involved expects. The signing guide covers how to place one on each platform.

Why the difference matters for every other tool on this site

A drawn signature is page content, so it survives being merged, reordered and compressed like any other image. A certificate signature does not survive any of them, because every one of those tools writes a new file.

So the rule differs by type. With a drawing, order is a convenience. With a certificate, the signature has to come last, after the certificate work and after every change to the pages.

Questions people ask

Is a digital signature the same as an electronic signature?
No. Electronic signature is the broad term for agreeing by electronic means. Digital signature is one specific mechanism built on public key cryptography, and it is the only one a reader can verify.
Which type of signature do I need?
Ask whoever wants the document. If they mention verification, certificates or a qualified signature, you need the cryptographic kind. If they just say sign and return, a drawing is what they expect.
Can someone copy my drawn signature from a PDF?
Yes. It is an image on the page and anyone with the file can lift it out. That has been true of scanned signatures for as long as scanners have existed.
How do I check whether a PDF signature is real?
Open it in a reader that shows a signature panel. A certificate signature reports a name, a time and whether the file changed. A drawing shows nothing there, because it is only ink.
Does a scanned signature count as electronic?
Yes. An image of your handwriting placed on a page is an electronic signature, and for most everyday agreements that is what people mean by signing. It carries no proof of who put it there, which is the whole difference from a certificate signature.

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