Send a document for signature
Papers emails a document to the people who have to sign it, collects their signatures, and gives you back a single sealed PDF. The document can come from one of your templates or be a PDF you already have.
Start a signing request
From Signing, choose New signing request. The wizard has five steps, shown across the top: Document, Details, Recipients, Fields and Review. Next moves you on and Back takes you a step back.
Choose where the document comes from
The Document step offers two ways in.
Use a template lists your published templates, with a search box. Only published templates appear here. If the template you want is missing, it has never been published: open it and choose Publish. See versions and publishing.
Upload an existing PDF takes a file you already have. Drop it on the upload area or click to choose one. PDF only, up to 25 MB. Use this for a document that did not come from Papers: a supplier's contract, a form somebody sent you.
Pick one and choose Continue.
Pick the environment and version
Each template in the list shows the environment and version it will use, for example
prod · v4. That is the version your signers get, not the draft you have open in the editor.
A template published to more than one environment has a dropdown there instead. It starts on the environment furthest along your promotion order, which is normally production. Pick another one from the dropdown to send a different version.
Fill in the document's details
The Details step is for templates only. It shows Document data: one input per fillable field in the template, worked out from the variables you used. Fill them in and Papers renders the document when you choose Next.
A template with no variables has nothing to ask, and the step says so.
Document details on the same step is where you name the request, and Message to signatories is the note that goes in the invitation email. Name it so you can find it in the list in three weeks: "Employment contract, N Dlamini" rather than "Contract".
It also shows Expires at, but set the expiry on the Review step instead. That is the date the request uses.
If you uploaded a PDF, the wizard skips Details, because the PDF is already finished. The request takes the file's name, and you can rename it on Review.
Add the recipients
The Recipients step asks Who needs to sign? In Signatories, enter each person's Name and Email and choose Add. Add me adds you, for a document you also have to sign. Each person needs their own email address.
Drag a row up or down to change the order. Everybody is emailed at the same time when you send. The order sets the sequence the Fields step walks you through, and where each person's box sits when you use Initial every page.
Place the fields
On the Fields step you put a signature field for each person on the document. See place signature fields.
Set the message, the expiry and the reminders
The Review step, headed Review and send, carries Request settings:
Name is the request's name, as it shows in the list.
Message is the note that goes in the invitation email. A line saying what the document is and why you need it signed does more for your completion rate than anything else on this screen.
Expires at is when the links stop working. It starts 30 days out.
Reminders nudges people who have not signed. Tick 3 days, 7 days, 14 days, or any combination.
Allow Smile and Sign
Allow Smile and Sign is in Request settings too, and it is on for a new request. It lets a signer take a selfie instead of drawing a signature, and the photo goes on the document in place of their signature and initials.
The app warns you under the tick box: do not use it for wills, property sales or anything else that needs a handwritten signature. Untick it for those, and your signers draw, type or upload a signature as usual.
Review and send
Review checks the request before it goes. If everything is in order it says Ready to send. Every check passed.
Fix before you send lists what stops the request going: somebody with no name or email address, somebody with nothing to sign, or a field left belonging to a person you removed. Check these lists things worth a second look, such as two fields overlapping on a page.
Each item has a Fix button that takes you to the step where you sort it out.
Give every signer a Signature field. A person with only initials or a date shows under Check these, but Papers will not send a request where somebody has no signature to sign.
Send it
Choose Send on the Review step. If Check these still lists anything, Send anyway? shows you the list first: choose Send to go ahead or Cancel to go back and fix it.
Papers emails each signer a private link and the request moves from Draft to Sent.
Each link belongs to one signer, and whoever opens it signs as that person. Do not forward one, and ask your signers not to either.
Save it and come back later
The wizard saves as you go. A request you have not sent yet stays in Draft and is listed with everything else, so you can build it now and send it tomorrow. Its row carries Resume to pick up where you left off and Discard to throw it away. Only a draft can be discarded.
What the signer sees
They get an email with a link. The link opens the document in their browser with no account and no password. They accept the electronic-signature consent, make their marks, sign, and submit. Their four screens are in what your signers see.
Once everyone has signed, Papers seals the document, so the request passes through Sealing on its way to Completed. Sealing is a real step and not a label: it is what makes the finished PDF tamper-evident. Each signer is then emailed a link to download the signed copy.