Hi everyone. I just wanted to share a work-around that I found for signing PDF's in the Preview app and see if anyone else has used this method or has found a better one.
For the most part, the process is a fairly straightforward one. Follow these steps to signing a document:
1. Open the PDF you want to sign in Preview.
2. Go to the toolbar on the left side of the app.
3. Check the Markup checkbox. This will display the Edit toolbar.
4. Exit the toolbar and interact with the Edit toolbar.
5. VO-right arrow to the Sign button.
Here is where I have encountered frustration and found the solution that works simply because it works. After you press the Sign button, you will be presented with a list of signatures. The only way I have found to sign anything is to create a new signature. After doing this, I had to focus on the Click to Begin button, but instead of activating it with VO-space, I could only write anything using the trackpad by first pressing the space bar, then, after writing my signature, pressing a key to finish.
While I essentially achieved my goal of adding a signature to the document, I was not able to move the signature to where I wanted it. Hopefully those reading the document won't object.
Thoughts, questions, comments on this or a better method? Post below.
Comments
you should not create a new signature every time
if you kept doing so, you would eventually create a big mess.
first, put vo focus on the specific page where the signature field is, such as page 5. go to toolbar, click on sign, select the signature you want and click on it. now go back to the page you need to sign, you'll find the signature image at either the top or the bottom of the page. vo-, to start dragging, move vo cursor the the signature field, vo-. to drop the signature image, mission accomplished.
I do that and after dropping…
I do that and after dropping it just says Apple menu, and tthe signature is still on the top of the page? For me on mac it's not a field just an empty text though on acrobat on windows it's a real signature field click to sign... Is this normal? 15.1.1.
Edit: it's still there in the undo tree but I don't have voiceover feedback to confirm afterwards that it's been dropped there. I guess it does? It said initials dropped onto student signature text...
if it says "initials dropped onto student signature text"
it is most likely a success. i suppose you name your signature "initial", right?
here is how you can feel more confident. when you are on the signature field and before dropping the signature, press vo-shift-l to hear the description, do it again after dropping the signature. vo won't necessarily get the description right, but at least you'll have two different descriptions, for example, "a blue retangular box" before and "a board with scribble on it" after.
vo will tell you the signature image is still on top but it is in fact no longer there.
Good to know. I didn't know…
Good to know. I didn't know that form filling on mac with pdf was so easy, I can almost confidently ditch acrobat now! And this, folks, is good news for virtually everyone out there.
Yes initial is my signature. I so much like apple documentation here how they just so casually proudly mentioned VoiceOver, it's well deserved though! :) if you read that specific page about preview and form filling.