# Are Electronically Signed Documents Legal After Printing?

- Author: Schema Law (https://www.schemalaw.com/)
- Published: 2026-10-01T03:37:42Z
- Updated: 2026-10-11T19:22:20Z
- Category: Contracts and agreements
- Canonical: https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/electronically-signed-documents-legal

> Are electronically signed documents legal? What the federal statute says, and what printing, scanning or OCR does to the evidence inside a signed PDF.

In the United States, a federal statute says electronically signed documents may not be denied legal effect solely because they are electronic. It lists exceptions, and state law varies. Printing or scanning one changes no words on the page, but it discards the data inside the file about who signed and whether anything changed. Keep the original file.

This post is about handling the document. It is not legal advice, and it does not say whether a particular agreement is enforceable. That depends on the transaction, the parties and the law that governs it, and both state law and the statute's exceptions can change the answer. What follows is the statutory text, a description of what an electronically signed PDF contains, and a set of habits that keep its evidence intact.

## Are electronically signed documents legally binding?

Under the federal E-SIGN Act, a signature, contract or record in a covered transaction "may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form". The statute lists exceptions, and state law also applies. Whether a given signed document binds anyone is a question for the law of your own jurisdiction.

### What the statute says

The general rule is in [15 U.S.C. § 7001](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7001). Subsection (a) applies "with respect to any transaction in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce" and has two parts:

> (1) a signature, contract, or other record relating to such transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form; and
>
> (2) a contract relating to such transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because an electronic signature or electronic record was used in its formation.

Read the word "solely" with care. The provision is about electronic form. Subsection (b) says the statute does not "limit, alter, or otherwise affect" a requirement imposed by other law, other than a requirement that contracts or other records "be written, signed, or in nonelectronic form". What those other requirements are for your agreement is a question for the law that governs it. The same subsection says the Act does not "require any person to agree to use or accept electronic records or electronic signatures", apart from a carve-out for governmental agencies that the subsection sets out.

### What counts as an electronic signature

The definitions are in [15 U.S.C. § 7006](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7006). An electronic signature is:

> an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached to or logically associated with a contract or other record and executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the record.

The definition speaks of intent to sign and of association with the record. It names no particular technology.

### The exceptions

[15 U.S.C. § 7003](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7003) lists what section 7001 does not apply to. Read the section for the full list and its exact wording. It includes, among other items:

- a rule of law "governing the creation and execution of wills, codicils, or testamentary trusts";
- a state rule "governing adoption, divorce, or other matters of family law";
- the Uniform Commercial Code as in effect in any state, other than the sections and articles the statute names;
- "court orders or notices, or official court documents (including briefs, pleadings, and other writings) required to be executed in connection with court proceedings";
- certain notices, including notices of default, foreclosure or eviction for a primary residence and of termination of utility services or health insurance.

An exception means section 7001 does not apply to that document. Whether other law permits an electronic signature on it is a separate question to check.

### State law

The federal Act is one layer. [15 U.S.C. § 7002](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7002) allows a state statute to modify, limit or supersede section 7001 in defined circumstances, one of which is that the state law is an enactment of the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act. So the text that governs a given agreement may be a state statute. Outside the United States, different regimes apply altogether. Read the law of the jurisdiction that governs your document, and do not rely on this summary for a decision about a real agreement.

## What is inside an electronically signed PDF besides the signature?

An electronically signed PDF can hold four things besides the visible signature: the real text of the agreement, data recording the signing, a cryptographic seal over the file, and an added page or companion file that logs the signing events. Which of them yours holds depends on the service that produced it. Only the visible mark survives on paper.

Signing services differ, and you should read the documentation for the one that produced your file. In general terms the parts are these.

| Part | What it is | Where you see it |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Text layer | The agreement's actual characters, when the PDF was made from a word processor file | Select a sentence; it highlights word by word |
| Visible signature mark | A typed name in a script font, a drawn signature, or an image, sometimes with a date or an ID string beside it | On the page |
| Signature field data | Structured data attached to the signature field: signer name, time, sometimes a reason | Click the signature, or open the signatures panel in your PDF reader |
| Digital certificate seal | A cryptographic signature over the file contents, applied by the signer or by the signing service | The signatures panel, and in some readers a banner at the top of the document |
| Signing record | A summary of events: who was sent the document, when each person opened and signed it | An extra page at the end, or a separate PDF |
| Document properties | Producer application, creation and modification times | File, then Properties |

### The seal is the part that detects change

The terms are easy to mix up. An electronic signature, as the statute defines it, is any sound, symbol or process adopted with intent to sign. A digital signature is a specific technical thing. The [NIST glossary entry for digital signature](https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/digital_signature), quoting FIPS 186-5, defines it as:

> The result of a cryptographic transformation of data that, when properly implemented, provides a mechanism for verifying origin authentication, data integrity, and signatory non-repudiation.

"Data integrity" is the point for a document handler. A PDF sealed this way lets a reader program check whether the file has changed since the seal was applied. An e-signed agreement can carry both: a visible mark for each person, and a seal over the finished file.

### The signing record

The record of signing events goes by various names, such as completion certificate, audit trail or signing log. It may list each signer with an email address and the times the document was sent, viewed and signed; your service's documentation says what its record holds. It describes the signing process, and the agreement's own pages do not contain it.

Open the completion certificate and copy each signer's name, email, and time. The electronic signature you can see on the page is the mark itself. Compare that mark with the certificate before you file the PDF. Keep the certificate in the same folder as the agreement.

## What printing and rescanning an e-signed agreement strips out

Printing and rescanning an e-signed agreement strips out everything except appearance. The text layer, the signature field data, the cryptographic seal and the document properties are all gone, and the rescan is a new image-only file created on the day of the scan. The signing record survives only if someone printed that page too.

Follow one fictional agreement through the process. Kestrel Analytics Inc. and Marlow Freight LLC sign a services agreement through a signing service. The completed PDF is 14 pages plus a one-page signing record. An office manager prints it for the paper file, and a year later the paper file is scanned.

| In the completed PDF | In the rescan |
| --- | --- |
| Selectable text | Pixels; no text |
| Seal that a reader can validate | Nothing to validate |
| Signer name and time in the signature field | Only what is printed beside the mark, if anything |
| Creation date of signing | Creation date of scanning |
| Signing record page | Present only if it was printed and scanned |
| Sharp, searchable, small file | Larger, softer, unsearchable |

The words of the agreement are the same in both. What has changed is what the file can show about itself. Open the rescan and you cannot tell from the file whether the script-font name on page 14 was applied through a signing service or typed into a Word document by anyone at all.

### Other ways the same loss happens

Printing to paper is the obvious route. Several others produce an equally bare file without anyone touching a printer:

- **Print to PDF.** Choosing "print" and then a PDF printer makes a new PDF from the appearance of the pages. The text may survive, but the signature data and seal do not.
- **Flattening.** Tools that flatten a PDF merge form fields and signature appearances into the page content.
- **Combining or splitting.** Merging the signed PDF into a larger bundle, or extracting pages from it, creates new files. A seal that covered the original file does not cover them.
- **Converting.** Exporting to Word and back, or running the file through a compressor, rebuilds it.
- **Faxing or photographing.** Both produce images.

None of these is wrong to do. Bundles, working copies and paper files are normal. The mistake is to do one of them and then delete or lose the file that came from the signing service.

Whether the printout or rescan is acceptable as a copy for a given purpose is a legal question that varies by jurisdiction and by forum. The related question for agreements signed in ink is covered in the post on whether a [scanned copy of a signed contract](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/scanned-copy-of-a-signed-contract) is as good as the original.

## Does an electronically signed PDF need OCR at all?

An electronically signed PDF usually needs no OCR, because it was generated from a digital file and already contains real text. Test it by selecting a word. OCR is needed only when you have been given a printout that was scanned, or when the document that was sent for signature was itself a scan.

The quick test and its variations are set out in the post on copying text from a PDF, under [how to tell whether a PDF has real text](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/why-cant-i-copy-text-from-a-pdf#how-can-you-tell-whether-a-pdf-has-real-text). Three situations come up with signed agreements.

**The file has text.** Use it as it is. Search works, copying works, and a comparison tool can read it. Running OCR would add nothing. The background on the two kinds of file is in the post on [native PDF versus scanned PDF](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/native-pdf-vs-scanned-pdf).

**The file is a rescan of a printout.** Ask for the original before you convert. The party that sent the agreement for signature, or any signer, may be able to download the completed file again from the signing service or find it attached to an email from the service. If the original cannot be found, treat the rescan like any other scanned contract and convert it.

**The file is an e-signed scan.** Sometimes a paper form is scanned, and the image is then uploaded and signed electronically. The result can have a signing record and no text at all, apart from the typed signature marks. This is the one case where an electronically signed PDF does need OCR.

### If you do need text from a sealed file

Do not modify the sealed original to add a text layer. Changing a sealed file is exactly what the seal exists to detect, and depending on the tool the save may fail, warn you or leave a file whose seal no longer validates.

Work on a copy instead.

1. Save the completed PDF, untouched, in the matter or contract record.
2. Make a copy and name it as a working copy.
3. Convert the copy and export the text, Word file or searchable PDF you need.
4. Store the output beside the original, labeled as derived from it.

In Schema Law that is an upload of the copy as a PDF of up to 20 MB, followed by an export. The [steps are on the homepage](https://www.schemalaw.com/#how-it-works). The export is a new file for reading and searching. It carries no signature data from the original, so it never replaces the completed PDF in your records.

## Telling an electronic signature from a pasted signature image

To tell an electronic signature applied through a signing process from a pasted image, open the file in a full PDF reader and look for signature data: a signatures panel entry, a clickable signature field, a validation banner. A pasted image has none. It is a picture on the page, and the file says nothing about who put it there.

A legal caution first. The definition of an electronic signature in 15 U.S.C. § 7006 speaks of intent to sign and of association with the record, and it names no technology. So this inspection does not tell you whether a signature is legally effective. It tells you what evidence the file contains about how the mark got there.

### An inspection routine

1. **Open the file in a desktop PDF reader.** A browser preview or a phone viewer may not show signature data.
2. **Look for a banner.** Some readers show a bar across the top of a sealed document saying it is signed or certified, and whether the signatures are valid.
3. **Open the signatures panel.** If the panel lists one or more signatures, select each one and read the details: signer, time, and whether the document has been changed since.
4. **Click the visible mark.** A signature field responds with a properties dialog. A pasted image either does nothing or selects as a picture you could drag.
5. **Try to select the name.** A typed signature in a script font, placed as text, highlights like text. An image does not.
6. **Zoom to 400% or more.** A scanned ink signature pasted as an image may show a pale rectangular background or jagged edges that differ from the crisp text around it.
7. **Read the document properties.** Note the application that produced the file and the dates. A producer that is a word processor or a print driver is consistent with a file made outside a signing service.
8. **Check for a signing record.** Look for an added last page or an accompanying file.

### Reading what you find

| Finding | What it suggests |
| --- | --- |
| Signatures panel lists a valid seal; signing record present | Completed file from a signing process, unchanged since sealing |
| Panel lists a signature but reports changes since signing | The file was altered after sealing; find out how before relying on it |
| No panel entries; marks are text or images; no signing record | A flattened copy, a print-to-PDF copy, or a document signed by pasting |
| Whole page is one image | A scan or rescan; nothing can be learned from the file itself |

The third and fourth rows are not accusations. A bare file can be an ordinary copy of a properly signed agreement. The finding only means that this file cannot show how it was signed, and that you should ask for the one that can.

If all you hold is an image and you need to record who signed and when, you are working from the printed signature block like any other scan. The post on [extracting signatures and dates from scanned documents](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/extract-signatures-and-dates-from-scanned-documents) covers reading it.

## Storing the completion certificate with the signed agreement

Store the completion certificate in the same record as the signed agreement, as the original file downloaded from the signing service, on the day the agreement is completed. Do not leave it in the service's account, where access can lapse with a subscription or a departed employee's login.

### Why retention form matters

The E-SIGN Act addresses retention. Section 7001(d)(1) says a legal requirement to retain a contract or record is met by keeping an electronic record that "accurately reflects the information set forth in the contract or other record" and "remains accessible to all persons who are entitled to access", for the required period, "in a form that is capable of being accurately reproduced for later reference". Other retention rules may apply to your organization or your client. Check which ones do. As a handling matter, the completed PDF and its signing record hold more about the signing than any copy made from them.

### A filing checklist

- Download the completed agreement as a PDF from the signing service, not from a preview or a print dialog.
- Download the signing record. If the service offers it combined with the agreement or as a separate file, keep whichever your policy prefers, and be consistent.
- Open the downloaded agreement once and confirm the signatures panel shows the seal as valid.
- Save both files under one stem.

```text
2026-03-02_Kestrel-Marlow_Services-Agreement_COMPLETED.pdf
2026-03-02_Kestrel-Marlow_Services-Agreement_SIGNING-RECORD.pdf
```

- Mark the files read-only where your system allows.
- Note in the record which signing service and which account sent the agreement, so someone can go back to it.
- Keep any working copies, bundles and printouts under different names, and never save over the completed file.

### Counterparts and mixed signing

A deal can be signed in a mix of ways: one party through a signing service, another by printing, signing in ink and emailing a scan. Then no single file holds everything. Keep each piece in the form it arrived in, alongside whatever compiled copy you assemble for convenience. The post on [counterpart signature pages](https://www.schemalaw.com/blog/counterpart-signature-pages) covers putting a scanned set together.

### When you were sent only a flattened copy

If a counterparty sends only a flattened agreement, ask for the completed file and the signing record while the deal is fresh and everyone still has access. A request made in the week of signing reaches people who still have the file to hand. The same request made three years later, in the middle of a dispute, may depend on an account nobody can log into.

## Try it on a real document

Upload a scanned PDF and export it as Word, a searchable PDF or plain text on the free plan. Your documents are never used to train an AI model. [Start free](https://www.schemalaw.com/api/auth/google)