Leave your John Hancock pen-free with DocuSign Ink

My printer is perpetually out of ink (or paper) so printing important documents never quite goes my way. And when I’m supposed to sign and return via email? Forget it — my scanner is just a giant paperweight. Enter my soon-to-be savior DocuSign Ink, a new universal app for iDevice, which eliminates the need for scanning and printing with its electronic signature support.

You’ll need an account to use DocuSign Ink, but you can either set one up through the system or link the service to an existing account. There are plenty of options to choose from: Google, Yahoo, Facebook, Windows Live, Salesfood, LinkedIn or Twitter, so there should be no complaints in this department.

I went with Google, and was quickly at work on entering my signature. This really did not go very well on iPhone’s small screen, and is my biggest complaint about the app. The act was slightly easier on iPad, but a stylus, which I don’t have, would have been the best option. Luckily, you only have to enter your signature and initials once because DocuSign Ink stores them. The app also offers five prewritten signature styles, based on your provided name. You’re able to “adopt” one of these as your signature, which was the road I took since one was pretty close to my normal handwriting anyway.

DocuSign Ink works in connection with other apps, like Mail, so you can import documents into the app directly. After you’ve pulled in a document, you’ll be able to drag and drop your pre-saved signature or initials directly onto the correct lines. DocuSign Ink also offers drag-able dates, check marks, your printed name or a blank text field for notes so you can rely on it to complete everything on a document you might need. (Where was this when I was applying for health insurance?) You can pinch and drag the frame to make your signature bigger or smaller. If you don’t have a digital version of the document, you can use your camera to take a picture of the paperwork, and import it into the app that way.

When you’re finished, you can email the signed document to whomever you like. A DocuSign page will automatically attach to the end of the file, explaining that you used the service to sign the document. As a precaution, your signature will be hyperlinked to your DocuSign ID card, which will display the time and date you signed the document as well as your geolocation if you have it enabled.

Best of all? DocuSign Ink is free.

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