How to scan your signature with a phone for an online form

You do not need a scanner. A phone photo of your signature, taken properly and cropped well, is accepted as a scanned signature.

Sign it right

• Paper: plain white, with no lines and no print showing through from the other side.
• Pen: black ink is the safe choice. IBPS, SBI and UPSC ask for black ink. GATE allows black or dark blue. A gel or ball pen with a firm line is better than a faint one.
• Size: sign a little larger than you usually do, so the lines stay clear when the picture is made small.
• Style: sign the way you will sign in the exam hall. Bank notices warn that a signature that does not match the one on the attendance sheet or call letter leads to disqualification. Do not write your name in capital letters: IBPS, SBI and GATE do not accept that.

Photograph it

1. Put the paper flat on a table near a window.
2. Hold the phone straight above it, so the paper looks like a rectangle and not a slanted shape.
3. Make sure your hand and phone do not throw a shadow on the signature.
4. Tap the signature on the screen to focus, then take the picture.

Crop close

Blank paper wastes space. Crop so the signature nearly fills the picture, with a small margin on every side. Most forms want a wide strip. SSC gives 6 cm by 2 cm, which is three times as wide as it is high. IBPS gives 140 by 60 pixels.

UPSC is different: it asks for three signatures one below the other, so that picture is closer to a square.

Clean and save

If the paper looks grey in the photo, use "Make the paper white" in the resize tool. It turns the paper white and the ink dark without changing the signature's shape. Then the tool saves a JPG inside your exam's KB range.

Mistakes to avoid

• A photo of a signature on lined or coloured paper.
• A signature typed in a fancy font, or drawn with a finger on a screen. GATE states that digital signatures are not allowed.
• Uploading the signature in the photo's place, or the photo in the signature's place.
• A tiny signature floating in a large white picture.

Check the official notice before you upload. We read these rules in the documents named under Sources on 11 November 2026. A new notice can change them, and the form on the day is the final word. This site is not connected with any exam body.

Next step

Open the resize tool Find your exam's rules

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