Digitally Sign PDF Documents
Gaurav Yadav

Updated on February 2nd, 2024

In this article we will discuss the How to Digitally sign PDF documents, required validation we needed. Considering the uncertain events taking place from the last 15+ months, it has become essential that the small businesses now streamline their business process and bring down their expenses as much as possible. 

Digital Signature services software is now helping small & medium enterprises to save on documentation costs, faxing, posting or moving around costs of the documents.

Digital Signatures reduces documentation costs and helps to close the critical business deals faster with a faster turn-around time of the document.

In this short article, we will submit to you some tangible and non-tangible benefits of Digital Signatures.

Digitally Sign PDF  Documents

Digitally Sign PDF  Documents – Realized & Unrealized Advantages on small businesses

Digitally Sign PDF & Word Documents completely online!

  • Digital sign PDF online is the best & efficient alternative for the traditional pen-paper based signing.
  • This allows the parties to sign the documents remotely without any hassle.
  • Digital signatures are known to reduce the turn-around time of the document drastically.  This shall improve the workflow's efficiency and allow the team to be more productive in signing the papers.

Let’s understand this with an example:

DB Bank, a multinational investment firm, has a dedicated team for Intra-group contract drafting of the bank transactions:

There are two transacting parties –

  1. DB Bank (Mumbai branch)
  2. DB Bank (California branch)

A mutual agreement has to be signed between these two branches for a particular Investment activity.

Following are the options that the firm had before adopting Digital Signatures & after adopting Digital Signatures.

Before adopting to Digital Signatures

  • This bank is NOT using Digital Signature technology.
  • The signatories are located in Mumbai, India & California, USA.
  • The contract drafting party is in Mumbai, India.
  • After drafting, the signatories from Mumbai sign the contract immediately.
  • After signing from Mumbai, this document is now sent to the California, USA office for signing by the other party.
  • The posting of the document from Mumbai to California, USA, takes about four working days.
  • On the fifth day, the document gets signed by the California, USA branch.
  • In short, the signing of the document by both parties has taken about a week-long period.
  • This looks very inefficient & time-consuming way.

After adopting to Digital Signatures

  • But, the introduction of Digital Signature Technology has brought about a radical change in the workflow now.
  • Both the parties can digitally sign PDF online documents of the agreement within a few minutes without posting the document overseas; neither faxing the document nor any signatories are required to be present to sign the document physically.
  • Digital Signature online, in this example, has drastically reduced the turn-around time of the document from 6-7 days to few minutes!

Digitally Sign PDF documents : Security & authentication

Digitally Sign PDF documents Security
  • Digital Signatures are developed based on the principle of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI).
  • PKI technology ensures that Digital Signatures offers the highest security and authentication to the documents marked with the Digital Signatures.
  • Marking a document with a Digital Signature ensures the authenticity of the source & identity of the user signing the document. So when a receiver receives a digitally signed copy, he can be sure that the individual signing the document is verified and the document is not tampered with.
  • The encrypted key in the digital signatures uniquely links the signer with this document providing an extra level of authentication and security.

Digitally sign PDF – Worry not! It’s Accepted in India & legally compliant!

Digitally Sign PDF documents acceptance
  • It's been quite a while now since the acceptance of electronic signatures by the industries.
  • Digital Signatures also fall under the umbrella of electronic signatures, and more and more nations now prefer Digital Signatures to sign all their business documents.
  • In India, Digital Signatures are legally recognised under the Indian Information Technology Act of 2000.
  • Hence, small & medium enterprises should fearlessly choose to Digitally sign PDF documents as it is completely valid and recognised in India.
  • To emphasise this point, we submit to you that Digital Signatures are essential to upload the GST-related documents on the government's GST portal.
  • Hence, taxpayers and small businesses must have user-friendly Digital Signing software in place to digitally sign PDF & Word documents as and when required without any hassle.

When you receive any PDF document, you may want to verify the validity of signature. This confirms the authenticity of documents and sender can be trusted on the basis of that.

On below 2 links you will come to know how to validate signature in PDF online. The video will show you a live demo of the process in simple steps.

To learn more about digitally signing PDF, click on How to validate signature in PDF.

For more information click on how to verify digital signature in pdf 

Digital Signature online – Improves your professional image

  • In a market flooded with multiple options of service providers, clients always prefer to choose the best service provider for their business needs.
  • A business can be measured for its efficiency and professionalism on many parameters by its clients. Hence, businesses must observe due diligence in every aspect of their business decision that can make or break that relationship with the valued client.
  • Digital Signature is one such technology that will Digital Signature is one such technology that will help boost your professional image in front of your client by closing the deals faster in a techno-savvy and quicker way!

Lesser expenses = lower costs = happy customers

dsc reward
  • When an enterprise successfully minimises its expenses in processes like documentation posting, faxing and other such costs, it allows the business to keep the costs of their services or products low.
  • Lower costs on products and faster services may be an indirect impact of implementing Digital Signing, but they sure do count as it makes the end customer happy!
  • Digital Signing software helps businesses to improve their efficiency and minimise their turn-around time of the document. This allows the business to ensure timely delivery of the service or the product to the customer.
  • When the customer is satisfied with the faster response of the business concerning the documentation, it indeed leaves a positive impact on the customer, and the chances are that the customer will choose your service the next time too!

Keep track of all your documents completely online

  • The companies need to have their documentation up-to-date and available on demand.
  • In this paperless era, it has become essential that businesses have their documents in electronic format to be presented or referred to on-demand.

For Example: 

  • A GST registered business must have all the documents in place in case of a GST departmental audit.
  • If a business uses Digital Signing software like GSTHero SafeSign, it allows the business to digitally sign all the PDF documents in a single click.
  • GSTHero SafeSign will also allow maintaining an e-trail of all the digitally signed documents.
  • Maintaining an e-trail of records is necessary for their internal records and any such surprise departmental audit.
validate signature in pdf

EMSigner for GST - 100% working solution by GSTHero

GST taxpayers have been facing a very common error while filing their GSTR-1 & GSTR-3B.

The dialogue box that appears on the GST Portal is as follows:

EMsigner for GST

For a quick fix for this error, visit our dedicated page of EMsigner for GST - 100% fix for DSC error.

GSTHero SafeSign – An ultimate Digital Signing Solution

GSTHero’s SafeSign is a user-friendly Digital Signing solution that allows you to easily sign all the PDF documents digitally without any special supervision.

Digital Signing PDF can be tricky sometimes, and you may encounter an error while validating the signature on the PDF.

To know more on how to validate the signature in PDF, click on the video link.

Following are some of the highlighting features of the GSTHero’s Digital Signing Software:

  • Military-grade security protects the confidentiality of your data.
  • Smooth integration with your existing ERP and CRM systems
  • Choose between the dongle-based & the server-based digital signature
  • GSTHero is a Government-appointed GST Suvidha Provider. Hence, SafeSign is entirely compliant with all the GST laws and can be easily used to digitally sign PDF documents & upload them on the GST portal or other government portal.
  • Suitable for all types of businesses. Be it a large enterprise or a small floral stall, all kinds of companies can easily use it to validate Signature in PDF online.
  • Individuals can use digital Signatures for any document authentication process
  • Digitally signs your PDF documents without changing the orientation of the original document.

Connect with us today to get your free demo now and experience the power of Digital in your business!

Email: info@gsthero.com

Phone: +918007700800

In a nutshell…

Digital Signing software has become a necessity for every business as the applications of Digital signatures will increase.

Choosing a Digital Signing software like GSTHero SafeSign will allow businesses and individuals to complete the documentation faster and help in efficiently closing important business deals!

Stay updated; stay ahead!

Until the next time….


Gaurav Yadav

About the author

Gaurav is an Engineer by training with a deep interest in Economics & Finance. He has been associated with the Fin-Tech industry for quite some time now. He writes for GSTHero for topics including GST Compliance, GST Structure, etc & aims to break down complicated technical jargon into simple terms for the taxpayers.

His expertise includes GST Laws, Corporate Finance & Macro-Economics.

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