Sign For Free Help Center

Core concepts

Understand Envelopes, Senders, Recipients, Signers, and audit trails

Use Sign For Free terminology consistently so you can follow each role, state, private link, and completion file.

Role
Sender, Recipient, Signer, or document reviewer
Plan
Free and Basic
Platform
Web browser and email

Before you start

In Sign For Free, one PDF and its signing workflow are organized as an Envelope. The following roles and terms describe who acts, what they receive, and what evidence is produced.

Identify the parts of a signing workflow

  1. Identify the Envelope

    An Envelope contains the uploaded PDF, assigned fields, people, signing progress, and completion evidence for one workflow. It expires 72 hours after creation.

  2. Identify the Sender

    The Sender creates the Envelope, uploads a PDF smaller than 5 MB, adds Recipients, assigns fields, and signs before Recipient invitations are ready. The Sender does not count toward the Recipient limit.

  3. Identify each Recipient and Signer

    A Recipient is the person identified by an email address that the Sender adds to the Envelope. A Signer is a type of Recipient who uses that Recipient's private link to complete assigned fields. Free supports up to five Recipients; Basic supports up to ten.

  4. Identify fields and private links

    The Sender can place new Signature, Date, Text, or Stamp fields for the Sender or a Recipient. Each Recipient has a private signing link tied to the email address added for that Recipient.

  5. Follow the Envelope state

    The routine user-facing states are Draft, Waiting for sender, Waiting for recipients, Completed, and Expired.

  6. Keep the completion evidence

    After everyone signs and final processing succeeds, the Sender and all Recipients receive the completed PDF and audit_trail.pdf. The audit certificate records evidence used by the verifier to check the completed document.

What happens next

The Sender can use the dashboard to follow the Envelope state during its short lifecycle. Signers use their own private links. After completion, every party should save both emailed PDFs in storage they control.

Warnings and limitations

  • A private signing link is not a public or shared signing link. Send each link only to the Recipient email assigned to it.
  • Matching an entered email to a Recipient record is not strong identity verification.
  • New Envelopes support Signature, Date, Text, and Stamp fields.
  • The audit trail helps demonstrate recorded signing evidence. It does not guarantee legal enforceability or a person's identity.
  • Sign For Free does not provide long-term completed-document storage.

Troubleshooting

You cannot tell whether you are the Sender or a Signer
If you created and configured the Envelope, you are the Sender. If you received a private link to complete assigned fields, you are acting as a Signer.
A Recipient does not have an account
No account is required. The Recipient opens the private link and enters the exact email address that received the invitation.
An Envelope still says Waiting for sender
The Sender must finish the Sender's assigned signing step before Recipient invitations are ready.
Everyone signed but the Envelope is not Completed
Final document processing may not have finished. The Sender can follow Retry a document that did not finish processing.

Still need help?

Start with your role and the Envelope's current state, then use the related article that matches the action you need to take.