How to scan and sign a PDF on Android — without an account
Most "free" scanner apps make you create an account before you can capture a single page, then quietly upload your scans to a server you don't control. You can avoid both. Here's the four-step version.
What you need
- An Android phone running Android 7.0 (Nougat) or newer
- The paper document you want to scan
- About two minutes
The four steps
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Install ScanSign
Install ScanSign from Google Play or the direct APK on this site. The app is around 12 MB and asks for one permission: camera access. There is no signup. No phone number. No email. The first screen after install is the capture view.
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Capture the page
Hold the page on a flat, contrasting surface — a desk, a sheet of A4, the floor. Open ScanSign, point the camera at the page, and tap capture. The app auto-detects the four corners of the paper and corrects perspective so the result looks like it came off a flatbed scanner, not a phone held at an angle.
If the auto-crop misses, drag the corners manually before continuing.
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Apply a filter
You'll see six filters. The defaults you'll use the most:
WHITE — cleans the paper background to a clean sheet while preserving signature ink, rubber-stamp colour and any handwritten marks. Use this for contracts, receipts and government forms.
Original — keeps the colour exactly as captured. Use this for photos of forms with coloured logos or graphics you want preserved.
B&W — strips colour. Smallest file size. Use only when colour doesn't matter.
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Sign and export
Tap Sign. Draw your signature with your finger or a stylus in the signature panel. Drag the signature onto the page wherever it needs to go. You can resize it.
Tap Export → PDF. Share via the Android share sheet — WhatsApp, Gmail, Drive, Telegram, anywhere. Done.
Why "no account" is the feature
A document scanner sees your most sensitive paper: rental agreements, bank statements, ID cards, medical reports, insurance forms. The moment you create an account in a scanner app, every page you scan is associated with a user record, and the default cloud-sync setting copies that PDF to a server you don't control.
ScanSign was built around one rule: the document never leaves your phone unless you choose to share it. There is no signup because there is nothing to sign in to. There is no telemetry on document contents. If you uninstall the app, the scans are gone.
A note on legal signatures. A signature drawn on a scanned PDF is generally accepted as a digital reproduction of a wet signature for everyday agreements (rental forms, parental consents, basic contracts). For documents that legally require an audited e-signature — court filings, certain regulated finance, government e-Sign mandates — use a dedicated e-sign service that adds a timestamp, audit trail and identity verification.
What ScanSign doesn't try to do
ScanSign v1.0 doesn't ship OCR (the "convert scan to editable text" feature) — that's coming in v1.1. It also doesn't have team folders, cloud sync or document templates. The whole point of the app is the four steps above, done fast. If you need the rest, see how it compares to CamScanner and Adobe Scan.