Google Docs and Drive now natively support eSignatures

Electronically signing authorized paperwork could be a little bit of a ache. Unlike their paper counterparts, that are self-contained, you typically should hop into totally different browser tabs to get the whole lot signed, initialed, and dated correctly—particularly when you’re working inside Google Docs and Drive. But that’s quickly to alter with Google’s announcement of eSignatures support in Docs and Drive shifting out of alpha testing right into a beta part.

As noticed by The Verge, Google Workspace Individual subscribers now have direct entry to the open beta. Meanwhile, directors for “select Google Workplace” accounts (a pool that features some Business, Enterprise, Education, and Nonprofit clients) can join the beta through Google’s request kind. This wider availability comes somewhat greater than a 12 months after Google’s preliminary introduction of eSignatures in June 2022.

Google

Workplace subscribers with entry to the eSignature characteristic will be capable to request signatures, see the standing of pending signatures, and view accomplished contracts. According to The Verge, you may add kind fields for each full signatures and initials to paperwork, in addition to a “date signed” field that may be set to auto-fill. Google additionally teased a number of upcoming options: audit trails, a number of signatures on a single doc, signatures from non-Gmail customers, and including eSignatures to PDF recordsdata.

eSignature support started rolling out for Google Workspace Individual customers on August 8, although Google says it may take as much as 15 days for the characteristic to seem for everybody. For Workspace clients, purposes for the beta begin now, with approval and activation of the characteristic to occur over “the next several weeks.”

Unfortunately, there’s nonetheless no phrase on if this characteristic will ever come to client accounts—so when you don’t have a Workspace plan (and don’t intend to subscribe), you’ll have to make use of an alternate technique to seize digital signatures. There’s at all times nonetheless the tried-and-true technique of utilizing a PDF editor, for instance.

Author: Alaina Yee, Senior Editor