E-sign Documents: tools and apps

Xodo Sign (formerly eversign), a product of eversign GmbH, lets you send documents for electronic signature from the browser, place signature fields and track who has signed. The Free plan allows up to five documents a month, paid plans lift that limit, and recipients can sign without a paid seat or an account. The Professional plan adds advanced PDF editing such as redaction and annotation.

Docusign eSignature lets you send agreements for electronic signature from the browser, track their status and reuse templates; the signing side works on any device and signers do not need an account. You can start with a free trial and then choose a paid plan, and the lowest paid plan limits how many signature requests (Docusign calls them envelopes) you can send each month. Docusign also offers agreement-management products, but this record covers only eSignature.

Dropbox Sign is Dropbox's web service for sending documents out for electronic signature: you choose a file, add signers and signature fields, send the request, and the signed copy can be saved automatically to a connected storage account. Recipients can sign without creating an account. You start with a 30-day free trial and then continue on a paid plan; Essentials is for individuals, Standard for small teams and Premium for large teams on a custom quote.

PDF Candy, run by Icecream Apps Ltd., offers online PDF tools for merging, splitting, compressing, editing and converting PDFs, including PDF to Word and OCR. Its free plan works without an account but has page and hourly limits, a limited file size and no batch processing, and the site states that uploaded files and results are kept for no longer than two hours. A paid plan lifts the hourly limits, and a separate Windows desktop version works offline.

Xodo, a PDF toolset from Apryse, runs in the browser and as a desktop editor called PDF Studio for Windows, macOS and Linux. The web tools cover merging, splitting, compressing, editing and converting PDFs, including PDF to Word and OCR, while the desktop editor works fully offline. Free use on the web is limited to one action a day, and the full tools need a paid plan or a short trial that asks for a payment method.