Send a Document for Signature
The full path from a file on your desktop to an envelope sitting in someone's inbox. Four steps — upload, recipients, fields, review — and the builder saves your work as you move between them.
What it's for
This is the core Document Signing workflow: take a contract, decide who signs it and in what order, CC anyone who needs a copy, drop signature fields onto the pages, and send. If you send the same document repeatedly, do this once and then switch to templates.
Navigating here
Dashboard → Document Signing → New envelope.
Step 0 — Upload
- Drop a file onto the upload area, or click to browse.
- Give it a Document title. The filename (minus its extension) is filled in for you — "Vendor MSA — ACME Corp." reads better in the envelope list than "scan_final_v3".
- Click Continue.
What you can upload. Not just PDFs. Autessa accepts PDF, images (PNG, JPG,
GIF, BMP, TIFF, HEIC), Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, RTF, plain text,
HTML, Pages, and .msg files — anything that isn't already a PDF is converted
to one on upload. The button reads Converting… while that happens, which
takes a few seconds on large files.
The limit is 25 MB per file.
Conversion is one-way and happens at upload. What every signer sees, and what gets sealed at the end, is the converted PDF — so check the preview on the next step before you place fields, especially for Word documents with unusual layouts.
Step 1 — Recipients
This is the step that decides the shape of the whole envelope.
Pick a signing order
At the top of the step, choose one:
| Option | Behavior |
|---|---|
| Everyone at once | Every signer is emailed the moment you send. They can sign in any order, at the same time. Use this when nobody's signature depends on anyone else's. |
| One at a time | Only slot 1 is invited on send. The moment they finish, slot 2 is invited automatically, and so on. Use this when an internal approver must sign before the document goes to a customer, or when a countersignature has to come last. |
Under One at a time the slot numbers are the running order. Slot 1 signs first, slot 2 second. Order the slots the way you want the document to travel.
Add your signers
Each numbered slot is one required signature.
- Click Add signer for each person who must sign. Email is required; a full name is optional but makes the invitation email and the audit trail far easier to read.
- As you type, Autessa suggests people you have sent to before — your personal contact list, ranked by how often you have used them. Pick one to fill in both name and email.
- To let any one of several people satisfy a slot, add them to the same slot as a client group — for example either of two contacts at a customer, or whichever partner is around to countersign. The review screen labels these "any one of them signs".
Fields belong to the slot, not to the person. When a client group is used, whoever signs first fills every field assigned to that slot — you don't place duplicate fields for the other members of the group.
Add viewers (CC)
Below the signers is a Viewers section. Anyone you add here is CC'd, read-only, and never signs.
A viewer receives:
- a read-only copy when you send the envelope,
- an updated copy each time a signature lands (clearly marked not yet fully executed, so nobody files a mid-flight copy as the final contract),
- the final sealed document once everyone has signed.
Viewers hold no slot, take no turn under One at a time, and never hold up completion. Use them for a records inbox, a colleague who needs visibility, or the other side's accountant.
Click Continue when your recipients are set. Autessa saves them before moving on.
Step 2 — Fields
The field editor is a toolbox on the left, the document in the middle, and a properties panel for whatever you select.
Drag fields onto the page
Fields (filled by the signer you assign them to):
| Field | What the signer does |
|---|---|
| Signature | Draws, types, or uploads their signature |
| Initials | Same, sized for an initials box |
| Name | Types their full name |
| Types their email address | |
| Date signed | Stamped automatically when they sign |
| Text | Free-text entry |
| Checkbox | Ticks or leaves blank |
Prefilled content (filled by you, before sending — signers see it baked into the document and can't change it):
| Field | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Static text | A price, a term, a party name |
| Static date | An effective date |
| Image | A logo, a stamp, a pre-applied signature |
To place one, drag it from the toolbox onto the page. Then:
- Assign it to a signer. Every recipient field belongs to exactly one slot, colour-coded to match the signer.
- Mark it required if the signer must not skip it.
- Give it a label ("Pricing", "Start date"). Labels name the field in validation errors, so a blocked send tells you which box is empty instead of just "a field on page 3".
- Adjust font, size, colour, and rotation in the properties panel.
Editor shortcuts
The editor is built for laying out long documents quickly:
- Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Shift+Z — undo and redo.
- Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V — copy and paste fields, including across pages. Ideal for an initials box that repeats on every page.
- Zoom control for precise placement on dense pages.
- Page thumbnails panel for jumping around a long document.
Edit the document itself
While the envelope is still a draft you can change the document without starting over:
- Delete pages you don't need.
- Append a PDF to the end — a schedule or an addendum.
- Reorder pages.
- Strike — toggle strike mode and drag to draw a red line through a clause, the way you would redline on paper. Click the × on a line to erase it.
Page editing and strikes are draft-only. Once an envelope is sent, the document is frozen — that's the point of the hash recorded on the audit trail. To change a sent document, void the envelope and send a new one.
Click Review when your fields are placed.
Step 3 — Review
The review screen shows the document with every field in place, and a summary panel: document title, signing order, signatures required, recipient count, viewer count, and fields placed. Below that, each numbered slot with its signer — and "any one of them signs" where you built a client group.
Before you can send, every required prefilled field must be filled. If any are blank, a warning lists them by label and page; click one to jump straight back to it. Autessa blocks the send rather than let a contract go out with empty clauses.
Customize the invitation email
Use Edit message to set a custom subject line and a short note that appears near the top of the invitation. Left blank, the default wording is used. A sentence of context ("This is the renewal we discussed Tuesday — the only change is the term") measurably improves response times.
Send
Click Send for signing. Autessa then:
- Flattens your prefilled content into the PDF — this becomes the canonical document every signature is computed over.
- Mints a unique signing link for each recipient and emails the invitations (or just slot 1, under One at a time).
- Emails every viewer their read-only copy.
- Stamps the envelope
SENTand records it on the audit trail.
You land on the envelope's detail page to track it.
How to set a link expiry
Signing links carry an expiry, set when you send. Shorten it for a time-boxed
offer; lengthen it when a counterparty is slow. When a link expires the signer
sees an expired-link page with a one-click request for a fresh one, so an
expiry never strands anybody. The envelope's own status flips to EXPIRED at
the same moment, and expired envelopes are hidden from the list until you
select the Expired filter.
How to take the guided tour
If you'd rather learn by doing, the in-app tour walks this exact flow with a sample agreement pre-loaded — you place three fields and send the envelope to yourself. Open Help from the dashboard and choose the Document Signing walkthrough.