Using a Digital Scanner

The following steps outline the procedure for creating and saving a signature using a digital scanner and photo editing software such as Microsoft Paint.

  1. On a plain sheet of paper, sign your name as you normally would. An ultra-fine point black marker works best for this.
  2. Scan your signature in black and white mode at a resolution of 200 dpi.
  3. Save the scanned signature with a .bmp, .png, or .tif file format.
    1. If your scanner auto-saves scanned content as a .pdf, then you will need to open the PDF and perform a File > Save As in Acrobat. Select the save as type with .jpg, .png, or .tif.
    2. Click Save.
  4. Launch your photo editing application.
  5. Browse to and open the file containing your signature.
  6. Crop the image to remove as much excess blank space as possible surrounding the signature.
  7. Check the quality of the scanned image. To do this:
    1. Change the background color to a color other than black or white (we used Fuchsia in the examples below) using the Fill utility.
    2. If your image displays clearly as in the following example, remove the background color and proceed to step 8.

      Remove background

    3. If your image displays with a blotchy background near the signature as in the following example, skip steps 8 and 9 and recapture your signature. You may want to consider Using a Signature Capture Device if you continue to have problems with your scanned images.


  8. Save the signature file as .bmp, .png, or .tif in a secure network folder.
  9. Import the signature(s) into SYSTOC (see Importing an Image).