How to Edit, Sign and Fill In a PDF Free in 2026: Add Text, Sign Without Printing, Fix a Page (Adobe, Smallpdf, iLovePDF, Jobbit)

The tenancy agreement arrives as a PDF with a line that says "sign here". You have no printer, the shop that scans is shut, and the first website you try wants £9 a month to let you draw your name. Nearly every PDF job a small business or a household meets is small: a signature, a date, a tick in a box, a crop, a name blacked out, a page swapped. To edit a PDF, sign a PDF or fill in a form should take two minutes, and in 2026 it can, for nothing, if you know which tool does which job without the paywall.

Here is the state of play on 3 October 2026, checked on the companies' own pages. Adobe's Fill & Sign tool is free with a free Adobe account; Smallpdf's eSign counts against its two free tasks a day; iLovePDF's Sign tool is free for a drawn or typed signature and charges only for certificate-based digital signatures; Sejda allows three free tasks an hour; and the Preview app on every Mac, the Edge browser on every Windows PC and the Markup tool on every iPhone will sign, fill and annotate a PDF with no account at all. DocuSign, the tool most people think they need, starts at £8 a month for five documents. This guide covers the 12 jobs, the free route for each, the UK law on electronic signatures, the honest limits (editing existing text is still the hard one), and the one message that does the lot on Jobbit, where the Free plan gives 100 credits a day with no card.

Edit, sign or fill a PDF on Jobbit in one message

The free PDF tool page is the quickest way to get a file into the chat; once it is there, the agent does the page jobs the page itself mentions under "Split, merge or convert next" and the editing jobs below. Attach a picture of your signature once (black pen on white paper, photographed in good light) and the agent can place it on any document from then on:

1Fill in this tenancy agreement: my name is Priya Shah, the address is 14 Elm Road, Stockport SK4 1AA, today's date on page 6, and tick the box that says "no pets". Place my signature (attached as signature.png) on the "Tenant" line on page 6, sized to fit the line. Black out the guarantor's phone number on page 3 so it cannot be recovered, and give me the finished PDF plus a flattened copy that cannot be edited.

The agent returns the completed file and the flattened copy, and lists exactly what it changed and where. The next message can be "crop page 2 to the form only", "replace page 4 with the attached scan", "add page numbers", or "make the scanned pages searchable". How to Merge and Split PDF Files Free covers the page jobs in depth; this post stays on editing and signing.

12 PDF editing and signing jobs, and the free route for each

Two rows deserve a second look. Redaction is the job the free tools get wrong: drawing a black box over a name in Preview hides it on screen and leaves the text underneath, which anyone can select and copy. A real redaction removes the text; ask the agent to "black it out permanently and flatten", or use Acrobat Pro. And editing existing text, the thing people mean when they say "edit a PDF", is still the premium feature on every site, because a PDF is a picture of a page with text laid over it. The free route is the honest one: convert to Word, change the words, save as PDF again; How to Convert a PDF to Word, Excel or JPG Free shows how to keep the layout.

Sign a PDF without printing it

Make a signature once, use it forever

Sign your name with a black pen on white paper, photograph it in daylight, and crop it tight. Every tool above accepts that image, and the agent keeps it on file for the next document. A typed signature in a script font is also valid, and a drawn one on a trackpad or a phone screen works if you have a steady hand; the photographed one looks most like you.

Place it like a human would

Size the signature to the line, not the page; put the date next to it in the format the document uses; initial where the document asks for initials. Then flatten the file, which turns the signature into part of the page so it cannot be dragged off, and keep the unflattened original in case something must change.

Is an electronic signature legally binding in the UK?

Yes, for most documents. The Electronic Communications Act 2000 and the retained eIDAS rules recognise electronic signatures, and the courts and the Law Commission have confirmed that a typed name, a drawn signature or a click can bind a contract where the signer intended to sign. Tenancy agreements, contracts for services, quotes, NDAs, invoices and most business paperwork are signed this way every day. The exceptions are the formal ones: deeds need a witness (who can be present while you sign electronically), some land registry forms have their own rules, and wills still require wet ink. When the other side needs proof of who signed and when, that is where a certificate-based signature or an audit trail from a signing service earns its fee.

Fill in a form: fields, scans and the boxes that are too small

A proper PDF form has fields that light up when you click them, and every free tool fills them. A scanned or flattened form has no fields, so you place text boxes where the answers go, which Adobe's Fill & Sign, Preview and Edge all do for free, and the agent does when you describe the answers. Three habits save the most time: keep your standard answers (name, address, company number, UTR) in a note you can paste, ask for text at the same size as the form's print so it does not look pasted, and check the box ordering on multi-page forms, where "tick the box on page 2" is clearer than "tick the second box".

For a form that will be filled in by many people (a client intake, a booking form, a staff declaration), do not hand-fill it at all: ask the agent to turn it into a web form that saves the answers and emails you the completed PDF, hosted with your domain on the Go plan at £7 a month.

The free tools already on your Mac, PC and phone

• Preview (Mac). Open the PDF, click the Markup toolbar: sign with the trackpad, the camera or an iPhone, add text boxes, shapes and highlights, fill form fields, crop, rotate and reorder pages, and export. It covers nine of the twelve jobs with no account.
• Microsoft Edge (Windows). Open the PDF in the browser: draw, highlight, add text, fill fields, and save. Signing is a drawn signature with the pen tool.
• iPhone and iPad. Open the PDF, tap Markup: sign, add text, fill fields, and share. The Files app's Create PDF turns photos into a PDF first.
• Android. Google's Files and Drive apps fill and annotate; Adobe's free app signs.
• Chrome, any computer. Fills form fields and adds basic annotations, then prints to PDF to flatten.
• PDF24 (Windows and web). Free, no counter, including page numbers, watermarks and a basic editor.

The limits are consistent: none of them edits existing text, none of them redacts properly, and none of them keeps a record of who signed what. Those three are where the paid tools and the agent come in.

Requesting signatures from other people

When you need a customer, a supplier or a tenant to sign, the job changes: you want a link they can sign on their phone, a copy for both sides, and a record of when it happened. DocuSign's Personal plan is £8 a user a month on annual billing (£12 monthly) for five documents a month; Adobe's Request Signature lives in Acrobat Standard and Pro; iLovePDF's Sign tool offers requests with limits on the free tier; Smallpdf's eSign does the same within its task count. For a one-off, a PDF signed by you, emailed, signed by them in Preview or Markup and emailed back is valid and free. For a business sending twenty contracts a month, a signing service's audit trail is worth £8.

How an AI agent handles PDFs differently

ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Manus and Meta's Muse can read a PDF and tell you what a clause means; some will produce a file. Where Jobbit differs is that the agent works on the actual file in its own workspace:

• Signs, fills, dates and ticks from a sentence, with your stored signature placed to fit the line.
• Redacts properly, removing the text rather than covering it, then flattens so nothing can be dragged off.
• Swaps and crops pages, adds numbers and watermarks, and makes scans searchable in the same message.
• Edits text the honest way, converting to Word, changing the words and rebuilding the PDF, and tells you where the layout shifted.
• Turns a form into a web form that collects answers and emails you the completed PDF.
• A person when it needs one. For a contract that should be checked before you sign it, Jobbit can bring in a UK legal or bookkeeping freelancer from the same place, with payment held in escrow until the work is done.

Harold, 71, lets the flat above his old shop. The first message filled in and signed the tenancy agreement with the new tenant's details and blacked out the guarantor's number on the copy for the agent; the second turned the agreement into a reusable template with fields; the third built a one-page site with an enquiry form for the next time the flat is empty. The signature was the smallest thing the agent did. If you are paying monthly for a PDF app to do jobs like these, Which PDF Compressor Is Best has the prices side by side.

Mistakes that make an edited PDF a problem

• A black box over a name. Hidden, not removed. Redact properly or ask the agent to.
• An unflattened signature. Draggable, deletable, and a sign of an amateur. Flatten the copy you send.
• Editing the only copy. Keep the original; edit a copy; name them clearly.
• Pasting a signature at the wrong size. It should fit the line, not fill the page.
• Signing something you have not read. Ask the agent to summarise the clauses first; two minutes, no regrets.
• A scanned form filled in at the wrong font size. Match the form's print.
• Expecting free text editing. It is the premium feature everywhere; use the Word route.
• Uploading a contract to a site you have not read the retention policy of. Use the offline tools or a workspace you control.

A 5-minute plan for the document in your inbox

• Minute 1: read it. Ask the agent to summarise the clauses and flag anything unusual.
• Minute 2: fill it. Names, addresses, dates, ticks, from your standard answers.
• Minute 3: sign it. Your stored signature on the line, the date beside it.
• Minute 4: protect it. Flatten the copy to send; keep the original; redact anything the recipient should not see.
• Minute 5: send it. Compressed if it is large, with the covering email the agent drafts. Next time, reuse the message.

Frequently asked questions

How can I sign a PDF for free without printing it?

On a Mac, open it in Preview and use Markup to sign with the trackpad, camera or your iPhone; on Windows, draw a signature in Edge; on a phone, use Markup. Online, Adobe's Fill & Sign is free with a free account and iLovePDF's Sign tool is free for drawn or typed signatures. Or attach the PDF and a photo of your signature to the Jobbit agent and say where it goes.

Is a typed or drawn electronic signature legally binding in the UK?

Yes, for most contracts and business documents, under the Electronic Communications Act 2000 and the retained eIDAS rules, as long as you intended to sign. Deeds need a witness, some land registry forms have their own rules, and wills still need wet ink; for anything where proof of who signed matters, use a signing service with an audit trail.

How do I fill in a PDF form for free?

If the form has fields, any free tool fills them: Preview, Edge, Chrome, Adobe's online tool, iLovePDF. If it is a scan with no fields, add text boxes where the answers go, or describe the answers to the agent and let it place them at the form's print size.

Can I edit the text in a PDF for free?

Not reliably. Editing existing text is the premium feature on Adobe, Smallpdf and iLovePDF. The free route is to convert the PDF to Word, change the text and save it back as a PDF, which the agent does in one message, with a note of any layout that shifted.

How do I black out information in a PDF properly?

Redaction must remove the text, not cover it. A box drawn in Preview or a free editor hides it on screen only. Use Acrobat Pro's redaction tool, or ask the Jobbit agent to black it out permanently and flatten the file, then check by trying to select the text afterwards.

How much does DocuSign cost for a small business?

The Personal plan is £8 a user a month on annual billing or £12 monthly, for five documents a month, as published in October 2026. For occasional contracts, a PDF signed in Preview or Markup and emailed is free and valid; a signing service earns its fee when you need the audit trail.

What is the fastest way to sign, fill and tidy a PDF?

One message to an AI agent that holds the file: attach the PDF and your signature image, say what to fill, tick, sign, crop or black out, and get the finished file plus a flattened copy back. On Jobbit the Free plan gives 100 credits a day with no card, and the same chat merges, compresses and converts the file next.