Formidable Forms

Formidable Forms

  • Features
  • Pricing
  • Resources
    • Docs & Support
    • Blog
    • Community
  • Solutions
    • Web Applications
    • Calculators
    • Surveys
    • Directories
    • Payments
    • Contact forms
  • Login
  • Get Formidable Forms

Njones35 / Last Updated June 12, 2020

How to Collect Electronic Signatures in Online Forms

New laws about electronic signatures allow many legal and banking forms to be completed online. Learn how to use signature fields in online forms to take advantage of the possibilities.


Electronic signature on your online forms
Electronic signatures aren't new, courier services embraced them almost without exception over the last ten years. In most countries these online signatures are legal and binding. As a result, electronic signatures may even be used as evidence in court in some countries.

This has opened up a whole new realm of uses for online forms. Now legal documents, lease agreement forms, loan applications and much more are easily completed online! If your form needs to be legally binding, asking for an electronic signature is a must.

Sadly there isn't yet a global standard for electronic signatures that will hold up in court. For that reason, if your form needs to be binding, it is vital to check the laws in your country.

Formidable Forms is the best WordPress Form Builder plugin. Get it for free!

The Formidable Digital Signature Plugin

The Digital Signature plugin allows two ways to collect user signatures. Your users may draw their signature with a touch screen, track pad or mouse, but they also have the option to type it. The drawn option is almost certainly the preferred route, but the "Type it" option makes sure this field can be used be all your website visitors, even those with limited mobility.

Add electronic signatures to existing WordPress forms

Adding a signature field to your old forms is easy and only takes a moment. The first step is to download the Digital Signature plugin and activate it on your site. Don't forget to add your license key on the 'Formidable' → 'Plugin Licenses' page inside your WordPress dashboard.

Once the Digital Signature plugin is installed, a new field type will appear on the Form Builder page.

To add a signature field to your form, go to edit your form. Find the Signature field in the right sidebar and click or drag and drop it into the form. The signature is usually placed at the end of a form, but you can include it wherever it looks best. Finally, save the form and click 'Preview'. Now the Signature field will appear and is ready for use.

If you want to set custom text for the 'Draw It', 'Type It' or 'Clear' labels, you can do this within the field settings.

electronic signatures field options

Display electronic signatures in emails and confirmation messages

An image file is created when the submit button is clicked, and this image can be inserted in a form confirmation message, email notification, or in a View.

The simplest way to display a signature is to insert [x] in the email message or View where you want the image to be displayed. Make sure to swap out x for the ID or key of your signature field. This will embed the image into your message.

You can also show the image URL alone if you wish, without the image HTML tag. To do this simply use the shortcode [x use_html=0].

Not using Formidable Forms yet? Learn more about the features that make Formidable Forms the best online form builder plugin.

Using WordPress and want to get Formidable Forms for free?

Get Formidable Forms Lite Now

This article may contain affiliate links. Once in a while, we earn commissions from those links. But we only recommend products we like, with or without commissions.

Comments

  1. Nathanael Jones says

    December 30, 2018 at 9:13 am

    Can you open a ticket in our helpdesk with this question please?

    Reply
  2. Sage says

    March 5, 2019 at 9:38 am

    Hey Nathanael,
    Just wondering if there's currently a way to utilize a stylus and touch screen laptop to do the signing? We are able to use the mouse/trackpad, but stylus+touch screen doesn't seem to work. Might be a setting we need to enable to use this function that I've overlooked.

    Reply
    • Nathanael Jones says

      March 5, 2019 at 9:41 am

      That's a good question! I don't have a device that I could test this on myself - would you be able to ask this question in our helpdesk and one of the other moderators should be able to help you out.

      Reply
  3. Roka says

    August 4, 2021 at 7:26 am

    One of the worst thing about this plugin digital signatures,
    If you send the form with "Electronic digital Signatures", and the status of the form stands on "Do not store entries submitted from this form", so you only want to get the data to your mail.
    You will get the data, but you will not get the signature to your the mail because the signature file just deleted after sending the mail, so you just get broken image sign.
    Why formidable cant send the signature as an image file so it will not brock?!

    Thanks

    Reply
    • Jhona says

      August 4, 2021 at 9:44 am

      Yes it's one of the things that I really don't know why they didn't fix it.

      Reply
  4. Jhon says

    September 18, 2021 at 5:28 pm

    Can someone confirm this problem solved?

    Reply
  5. Jitendrak Kumar says

    November 21, 2022 at 7:52 pm

    Folks how can we get the signatures on the PDF copy?

    Reply
    • srwells says

      November 22, 2022 at 1:31 pm

      Hi there, If you are having trouble getting the signatures in the PDF, could you please reach out to our support team? We can't provide support here on our blog.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Get Email Updates

Popular Resources

    • How to Create a Searchable Database on a WordPress Site
    • Create a WordPress Custom Calculator: Easy, Powerful Results
    • How to Create a Fitness Tracker in WordPress
    • Formidable Views: The Best WordPress Custom Application Plugin
    • How To Require Email To Download Files in WordPress
    • How to Create Conditional Drop Down Lists in WordPress Forms
    • Best Gravity Forms Alternative for WordPress: Formidable Forms vs. Gravity Forms
    • How to Make a Quiz in WordPress
    • WPForms Alternative: Formidable Forms vs. WPForms Compared

Take on bigger projects Right Now

Get the tools you need to revolutionize your workflow and architect a masterpiece. Build the most advanced WordPress forms and actually use the data you collect in meaningful ways.

Get the most advanced WordPress form plugin and the only form builder with integrated Views.

Get Formidable Forms Now

Resources

  • Community
  • Affiliates
  • Contact
  • Free Online Form Builder

Top Features

  • Application Builder
  • Calculator Forms
  • Surveys & Polls
  • Quiz Maker
  • Form Templates
  • Application Templates
  • Directories
  • Donation Plugin

Company

  • About Us
  • Giving Back
  • Careers
  • Newsletter
  • WP Tasty
  • Nutrifox

Copyright © 2023 Strategy11, LLC. Formidable Forms® is a registered trademark Strategy11, LLC.
Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Sitemap

Join 300,000+ using Formidable Forms to create form-focused solutions fast. Get Started See User Reviews