In short and in plain language
Many forms arrive as a PDF. A PDF is a file that looks the same everywhere. People often print it, fill it in and take a photo.
You can do this on your computer too. You fill in the fields on the screen. You create your signature once and add it.
You can also join files, turn pages and make the file smaller.
The article also explains when a signature by hand is needed.
We come to you, set this up with you and write the steps down for you.
The form arrives as an attachment, and then the detour begins: print it, fill it in with a ballpoint pen, sign it, photograph it with the phone and send back a crooked grey image. That route works, but it costs paper, time and legibility. On a computer the same job takes a few minutes: fill the form fields directly on screen, insert a signature you created once, merge several files into one, rotate and delete pages, bring the size down to the upload window. More important than any single step is a question that is rarely asked: which form does the other side actually require? German civil law distinguishes written form, electronic form and text form, and only one of them calls for a handwritten signature on the document itself (§ 126 BGB). This article covers both: the route on your computer and the point where it ends - as a continuation of digitizing your paperwork, which concerns the same filing cabinet.
Key takeaways
- Written form requires the document to be signed by the issuer in their own hand with their name (§ 126 BGB). An image of a signature inserted into a PDF does not meet that requirement.
- Text form only requires a readable declaration on a durable medium naming the person making it (§ 126b BGB). For this most common everyday case, a completed PDF attached to an e-mail is enough.
- A written form prescribed by law can be replaced by the electronic form: the name plus a qualified electronic signature on the document (§ 126a BGB). It has the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature (eIDAS Regulation).
- 88 per cent of people aged 16 to 74 sent or received e-mails in 2025 in the three months before the survey (Federal Statistical Office). The paperless route back is therefore open in almost every household.
- Four steps cover everyday needs: fill the fields on screen, create the signature once and cleanly, merge and rotate the pages, bring the file size under the upload limit.
Why the detour via the printer is so expensive
The sequence is well rehearsed in many households. The form arrives by e-mail, gets printed, filled in at the kitchen table, signed and then photographed with the phone. The result is an image: taken at an angle, with the shadow of your own hand across it, often darker than the original and regularly larger than the recipient's upload window allows. A searchable document has turned into a photograph - the text in it can be neither selected nor found. For your own filing that means the file will be traceable a year later through neither its content nor a full-text search. The article on digitizing your paperwork describes exactly this problem from the other side: only a properly named, searchable document is a filing system, everything else is a pile in a different shape.
The conditions for the shorter route exist in almost every household. E-mail is the most practised digital channel in the country: in 2025, 88 per cent of people aged 16 to 74 sent or received e-mails in the three months before the survey (Federal Statistical Office). Anyone who can open a message with an attachment can usually reply to it as well. What is missing is rarely the device and usually a routine that has been set up: a viewer that shows form fields, a stored signature file, a folder for completed forms and the certainty of which version may be sent.
A photo of a printout is the weakest version
Three forms, one decisive difference
Before the practical steps, a look at the law pays off - it settles most follow-up questions in advance. German civil law knows three graded forms for declarations. Written form requires that the document be signed by the issuer in their own hand with their name or by a notarially authenticated mark (§ 126 BGB). The electronic form can take its place; for that, the issuer must add their name to the declaration and provide the electronic document with their qualified electronic signature (§ 126a BGB). Text form, finally, only requires a readable declaration naming the person making it, on a durable medium (§ 126b BGB). Three sentences that decide a great deal in everyday life.
The difference determines whether a PDF filled in on a computer with an inserted signature image is enough. For text form it is, and that is by far the most common case: withdrawals, notifications, registrations, queries, a large share of what clubs, insurers, schools and landlords send out as forms. For a written form prescribed by law it is not, because an inserted image is not a handwritten signature on the document. The law does allow a substitute here: written form can be replaced by the electronic form unless the law provides otherwise (§ 126 BGB). What is meant is the qualified electronic signature, not a picture of one.
- Text form: a readable declaration on a durable medium naming the person making it (§ 126b BGB). A completed PDF attached to an e-mail typically satisfies this.
- Written form: a handwritten signature with your name, or a notarially authenticated mark, on the document itself (§ 126 BGB). An inserted signature image does not carry this form.
- Electronic form: the issuer's name on the document plus a qualified electronic signature (§ 126a BGB) - the only electronic version that replaces a written form prescribed by law.
- Agreed form: where written form comes from the contract rather than the law, transmission by telecommunication suffices unless a different intention is to be assumed (§ 127 BGB).
- Expressly excluded: ending an employment relationship by notice or termination agreement requires written form; the electronic form is excluded (§ 623 BGB).
Form fields
A genuine PDF form carries clickable fields. The text you type ends up as text in the file, stays searchable and is displayed sharply at any size on the recipient's screen.
Signature image
A cut-out image of your own signature, created once and reused afterwards. It carries text form and a form freely agreed in a contract, but not the written form prescribed by law.
Qualified signature
A signature procedure preceded by a check of identity. It replaces a written form prescribed by law (§ 126a BGB) and has the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature (eIDAS Regulation).
Filling form fields on screen
PDF files come in two constructions, and the difference decides how much work is involved. One carries genuine form fields: clicking into a line produces a cursor, the tab key jumps from field to field, tick boxes can be clicked, drop-down lists open. The other is a flat document - often a scanned sheet, or a printout that has become a file again. There is nothing to click there. How to tell them apart: viewers usually highlight fillable fields in colour when the file opens, or show a bar above the document noting that it contains form fields. If neither appears and pressing the tab key does nothing either, you are looking at the flat construction.
For the flat construction, the text tool helps - it is built into the viewers shipped with Windows and macOS as well as into the PDF displays of the common browsers. You place a text marker on the pre-printed line and type the entry. Two things are worth the effort: the font size should match the line height of the form so the page does not look like it has stickers on it, and the colour should be black or a very dark blue, because lighter tones can disappear when the recipient prints the page. Anyone handling many similar forms stores the recurring entries - name, address, customer number - once as a text snippet and saves the typing. Small routines like these are the heart of our courses on your own computer.
- First check whether genuine form fields exist: click into the first line and press the tab key.
- For flat documents, work with the text tool and match the font size to the pre-printed line height.
- Set tick boxes with the same character throughout; a mixture of ticks and crosses reads ambiguously at the other end.
- Go through the document from top to bottom once before saving: empty mandatory fields are the most common reason for a query.
- Save under a new name and keep the empty form in case the other side asks for a corrected version.
- Give the file a name following the same scheme as the rest of your filing, so it stays findable through search later.
When the form refuses to save
Creating the signature once and cleanly
The signature is created once and then used for years - which makes half an hour of care worthwhile. What you need is a white, unlined sheet, a black felt-tip pen with a firm tip and good, even light without harsh shadows. Sign in large letters, noticeably larger than on a form, because it will be scaled down later and gains sharpness in the process. Then scan the sheet rather than photographing it: a scan produces an evenly lit surface without perspective distortion. If you have no scanner, place the sheet on a flat surface near a window and hold the camera parallel above it.
The scan then becomes an image with a cut-out background. The image editors of the operating systems provide cropping and a contrast boost for that; what matters in the end is a format that supports transparency, so the signature does not sit as a white box over the text of the form. This one file goes into a fixed folder, is included in the backup and is inserted into documents whenever it is needed. On a tablet or a computer with a touchscreen the route is more direct: you sign with a finger or a stylus and store the result as an image. For the scanning route we set up the device you already own on request - the page on setting up printers and scanners explains what to watch for.
- Sign in large letters on a white, unlined sheet with a black felt-tip pen, two or three versions side by side.
- Scan the sheet; if you photograph it, hold the camera parallel above the sheet and keep your own shadow out of the frame.
- Crop a clearly readable version closely and raise the contrast until the background is white and the stroke is solidly black.
- Make the background transparent and store the file in a format that supports transparency.
- Put the file in a fixed folder, include it in the backup and keep that folder out of shared directories.
What the signature image does - and what it does not
Merging, rotating, shrinking
The second half of the work has nothing to do with law and a lot to do with patience: three attachments are supposed to become one file, one page is upside down, and the result is too large for the upload window. All three tasks can be handled with the tools already built into the systems. The way in is usually the page view of the viewer: a strip of thumbnails of all pages in which pages can be grabbed, moved, rotated and removed. Opening two documents side by side lets you drag pages from one into the other; the order results from where you drop them and should be checked once afterwards.
| Task | Route with built-in tools | Common stumbling block | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Merge pages | Open the page view and drag thumbnails from the second file into it | The order is wrong after dragging | One file instead of several attachments |
| Rotate and delete pages | Select the page in the thumbnail strip, rotate it or remove it | The rotation is not saved when the file is closed | All pages in reading direction |
| Reduce file size | Choose a lower resolution when saving, or print into a new file | Text becomes an image and full-text search is lost | File below the upload limit |
| Protect with a password | Set password protection in the viewer's security options | The password travels through the same channel as the file | File readable only with the password |
When shrinking a file, it pays to look at the cause. If the file is large because it contains scanned pages, the scanning resolution is responsible: plain text rarely needs the highest setting the scanner offers, and greyscale instead of colour often cuts the size again noticeably. If the file is large because photographs are embedded, a lower image resolution when saving helps. A searchable form filled in on a computer, by contrast, is rarely larger than a few hundred kilobytes - if it is, there is usually an embedded image inside that serves no purpose here.
At the end comes the filing. A consistent naming scheme of date, sender and subject makes the file findable again in a year, and a separate folder for completed forms keeps them apart from the blank template. So the work is not lost at the next change of device, that folder belongs in the running backup; how such a backup at home is built is something we clarify in the same appointment if needed. The signature file belongs there explicitly, because it is the part that is hardest to recreate.
Passwords, sending and what travels along
Forms regularly contain data you would rather not send openly across the network: date of birth, bank details, health insurance number, information about children. A PDF can be given a password when saving; the file is then encrypted and readable only with that password. The benefit stands or falls with the way the password reaches the other side: in the same e-mail as the attachment it achieves nothing. A second channel makes sense, a phone call for instance. Because the e-mail account itself becomes the security anchor at this point, it is worth looking at its protection first - the article on securing your e-mail account covers two-factor sign-in and inbox order.
Two kinds of protection need to be distinguished. The password to open encrypts the content: without it the file stays unreadable. The second is a permissions password meant to restrict printing, copying or editing - that protection relies on the cooperation of the displaying program and should not be understood as a lock. Anyone who wants to keep a file confidential uses the password to open and makes it long enough. A short password taken from your own surroundings is quickly guessed; a long sentence made of several words is not.
- Open the finished file yourself once before sending and look through all the pages.
- Set a password to open if sensitive details are included.
- Send the password through a different channel than the file, by telephone for example.
- Use long passwords made of several words and store them in a password manager rather than on a slip of paper.
- Secure your own e-mail account with two-factor sign-in before it becomes the delivery route for forms.
- Wait for the confirmation after sending and file the version you sent in the folder for closed matters.
Public authorities, deadlines and the rest of everyday life
In dealings with public authorities a separate rule applies that resembles the civil-law one: a written form ordered by a legal provision can be replaced by the electronic form, unless a legal provision determines otherwise (§ 3a VwVfG). The electronic form is satisfied by an electronic document provided with a qualified electronic signature (§ 3a VwVfG). Alongside that, the same provision opens the route via an electronic form of the authority, submitted using the electronic identity function of the identity card. In practice that means: where an office offers its own online form, that is a shorter route than any PDF you fill in yourself.
The electronic identity function is currently moving from the card reader onto the phone, which makes this route more practical for everyday use - the article on the digital wallet describes what changes with it. For forms between private individuals and companies, the graded civil-law rules remain: anyone who has to meet a deadline should read beforehand which form the letter requires. Where the word written appears in a contract rather than in the law, transmission by telecommunication suffices to preserve it unless a different intention is to be assumed (§ 127 BGB). Where written form comes from the law, as with ending an employment relationship, the electronic form is excluded (§ 623 BGB) and paper is unavoidable.
A qualified electronic signature shall have the equivalent legal effect of a handwritten signature.
Two things remain open after sending. First: the completed forms now exist as files and share the fate of all files - they are only as reachable as the device they sit on. Anyone who also holds important documents as a printout or on a second storage medium can still get at them when power or network fails; which technology still does something without electricity is covered in the article on a power outage at home. Second: a routine you need twice a year is forgotten again after six months. A note sheet with five lines beside the computer holds on to it - which is exactly what we write down together at the end of an appointment.
What we set up in your home
Setting up the routine
We set up the viewer so form fields are visible, create a folder for templates and completed forms, and work through a real form of yours from beginning to end.
Creating the signature
We scan your signature, cut out the background, store it in a fixed place and insert it into a document together with you. On request we show the same route on a tablet.
Note sheet and practice
At the end there is one page with the steps in your own words. Anyone working with forms regularly can go deeper in the courses on word processing and spreadsheets or in unhurried support for older people.
We work in your home, in the Hildesheim area and the Leine valley: in Hildesheim and the surrounding area we come with our own device, look at your forms and set up the routine on your computer, not on ours. An appointment usually takes an hour and covers filling in, signing and filing; what it costs is stated openly on the pricing page. No subscription arises, and no program is left behind that you would have to pay for later.
Sources and legal basis
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