Create an envelope

Upload your documents, add recipients and fields, and get an envelope ready to send.

An envelope holds one or more documents and the people who need to act on them. You build it in four stages, shown in the top bar: Documents, Recipients, Fields and Review.

Start a draft

1. Open Envelopes and click New envelope
2. Drop PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint or image files onto the upload area, or click it to choose files

The first file creates a draft. To start from a saved layout, click Start from a template at the bottom of the page instead. See Templates.

Click the envelope's name in the top bar to rename it. Recipients see this name in emails and on the signing page.

Your changes save as you go. The top bar shows Saved when everything is stored. If the draft was changed in another tab, it shows Changed in another tab with a Reload button.

File limits

• PDF files
• Word, Excel and PowerPoint files (.doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx), OpenDocument files (.odt, .ods, .odp), .rtf and .txt
• Images (.jpg, .png, .gif, .webp, and .heic where the server supports it). Each image becomes one page, turned the right way up, so a phone photo of a paper form works
• Up to 20 files and 2,000 pages per envelope
• Up to 25 MB per file and 100 MB in total

If a PDF has a password, enter it on the file's tile and click Unlock. If you don't have the password, upload a copy without one.

Arrange documents and pages

Each uploaded file becomes a document. In Documents you can:

• Rename a document by clicking its name
• Drag pages to reorder them, including into another document
• Use a page's ⋯ menu to Rotate right, Rotate left, Move to another or a new document, or Delete page
• Use a document's ⋯ menu to choose Who can see it, Rotate all pages, or Remove document
• Click Add another file, Blank page, or Add a template

Add a template adds a template's documents with their fields. You choose which recipient fills each of its roles, or create a new one.

Leave Place fields from text tags on to place fields from tags in your files. See Text tags.

PDFs with fillable form fields show a Fillable form note. See Fields.

Add recipients

Open Recipients to add the people involved and choose what each one does: sign, approve, acknowledge, or get a copy. You can also set a signing order. See Recipients and roles.

Below the recipients, pick a message Template or write the email Subject and an optional Message, and set Reminders and expiry. See Send and track.

Place fields

Open Fields to place signature, date, text and other fields, and choose who fills each one. Fields you fill yourself before sending are assigned to Me (now). See Fields.

Review and send

Review lists anything that stops you sending, each with a button to fix it:

• No recipients, or recipients without an email address
• Fields with nobody to fill them
• Signers with no fields
• Me (now) fields that are still empty

An envelope also needs at least one signer, approver or person who needs to acknowledge. One with only copy recipients can't be sent.

Review also shows the email subject and how many fields each recipient has. Click Preview PDF to see the draft with every field labelled with who fills it.

When everything is ready, click Send. If you're a signer and your turn comes first, the button reads Send and sign now and takes you straight to signing. See Send and track.

Work with drafts

Drafts stay fully editable until you send them. After sending, use Correct recipients or Correct documents and pages; see Correct a sent envelope. Find drafts under Drafts in Envelopes. To reuse a draft's layout, choose Save as template from the top bar's ⋯ menu.

New envelopes use your workspace's default filing rule, if you have one. You can change the rule on the envelope's page. See Folders and filing rules.

Drafts that haven't changed in a while are deleted automatically (30 days by default). Owners and admins can change this in Settings → Data & retention.

Create envelopes with the API

To create envelopes from your own app, build a template, then create envelopes from it with the API. See Envelopes API and the API reference.