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If you do anything financial, legal, or business frequently you have to provide PDFs of signed physical documents.

Every quarter I have to print->sign->scan->email multiple forms.

Inefficient and wasteful? Yes. Also required by law.



Most places (government included) accept e-signature now, don't they? You might need to upload the PDF to docusign to make it a "legit" e-signature, but that sounds better than the absurdity of printing and rescanning an originally digital document.


Nope. Many places will still require a physical signature on a scanned document. Why?

Because on their end, they print it back out and keep a physical copy. That is their workflow. Many offices are still paper based.

Even at my work, we use docusign for some stuff, but will require physical signatures for others.

Printing and rescanning is absurd, but also very easy for anyone. Especially now, it’s less “print and rescan” and more “print and send me a photo with your phone”.


Tried this with a couple of forms in Alaska and they were rejected because the signature looked like a digital one. (Even though my digital signature is a scan of an actual signature)


I had this with the IRS. Someone hand reviewed the form and used a highlighter to highlight the two digital signatures that were identical (they were, but not placed exactly the same, so im surprised they noticed) and said “this is not a legal signature, please sign again in ink and return”.


The E-SIGN act says that e-signatures are valid, with the main caveat being both parties need to opt into doing business electronically. Unfortunately that doesn't mean that every agency must accept e-signatures.


Me too. I however scanned my signature years ago and insert it in, along with my name. I use my iPad and Apple Pencil for dates or any other data.

In thousands of official documents, nobody has called it out. When asked "did you print and scan this?" I lie.

Eventually the world will catch up, but there's no need to participate in their bullshit in the meantime.


I don't think I do any less (or more) of that than normal/average. I managed to buy a house without one (by which I mean it never came up, not that I could work around it).




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