Signatures
A handwritten signature—a name or a placeholder?
✅ NormativeSettled. The requirement holds as written.📄 Page ruleCan be applied from the page alone.Read §7.3.10 in the RFC ↗
A handwritten signature MUST be rendered as a bracketed placeholder: [signature:{name}] when its
glyphs are genuinely legible, the bare [signature] otherwise. A name MUST NOT be guessed.
When it applies
A handwritten signature over a signature line.
Reading the examples. Each one pairs a source page with the output the rule expects. ✅ Sample: the rule applies. ❌ Counter-sample: it looks like it applies and does not, or a rendering got it wrong. A non-conforming output, in red, is shown only for contrast. … marks content left out of an excerpt.
The rendering
A signature whose name can be read from its glyphs:
[signature:Mariana Augusta de Figueiredo Lacerda e Souza]
A signature whose name cannot:
[signature]
A half-readable signature MUST get the bare [signature] form.
Why
A signature is semantically meaningful — the document is signed — but it is not text. The placeholder records the fact without asserting a transcription that could be wrong, and the name-carrying form preserves the value when the glyphs really are readable.
This is the same shape as [REDACTED] in Redacted Text (§7.3.8): a bracketed tag standing in for a
non-text region.
Edge cases
- Two signatures on one line MUST get two placeholders, one each, in reading order — even when both are illegible.
- A signature that is also a stamp, or that overlaps a printed grid, follows Handwriting and Stamps (§9.6.5).
On a form
A signature field follows the same shapes, with one addition: an unsigned field is a blank
fill-in, [blank], not a missing signature.
- **Your signature**: [signature:John Doe]
- **Spouse's signature. If a joint return, both must sign.**: [blank]
- **Date**: [blank]
- **Your occupation**: Accountant
A signature line's date and occupation companions are ordinary fill-ins — see Fill-Ins (§10.4.4).
A signature with its name printed beside it
The name in [signature:{name}] is read off the signature's own glyphs. Many documents print the
signer's name directly under the signature line.
A name printed under or beside an illegible signature MUST NOT fill [signature:{name}]: the
signature is the bare [signature], and the printed name is rendered as the text it is. The tag
records only what the strokes show — the printed name is not always the signer, as when someone
signs on another's behalf — and the name is kept as text beside it, so nothing is lost.
an auditor's signature over a printed name
A handwritten signature whose glyphs cannot be read, with A. N. Bhatt, Partner, a membership
number and a UDIN printed beneath it, and the firm's round seal to the left — see
Seals and Round Stamps (§7.3.9).
Source page
Expected output · excerpt, the signature block
…
For, Caldrivane & Rao LLP Chartered Accountants Firm Registration No. - 118427W/W100284
[signature]
A. N. Bhatt Partner Membership No. 084213 UDIN: 26084213MZQPKT2231
…
<!-- … -->
For, Caldrivane & Rao LLP
Chartered Accountants
Firm Registration No. - 118427W/W100284
[signature]
A. N. Bhatt
Partner
Membership No. 084213
UDIN: 26084213MZQPKT2231
<!-- … -->Initials on every page
Handwritten approval initials MUST be rendered as [signature] on every page that carries them,
with the initials inside the placeholder only when their glyphs support it. The placeholder MUST
be kept outside body sentences.
a scanned decision with a paraph
A handwritten mark at the bottom right of a scanned court decision page, below the footnotes, with no printed line or caption. No letters can be read in it.
Source page
Expected output · excerpt, foot of the page
…
37 Id. at 78–89. The August 11, 2023 Order in DRB Case No. 04-88 was approved by Chairperson Teodora L. Escamillas and Member Victor P. Renwick of the Construction Industry Arbitration Commission, Caldrivane City.
[signature]
<!-- … -->
<sup>37</sup> Id. at 78–89. The August 11, 2023 Order in DRB Case No. 04-88 was approved by Chairperson Teodora L. Escamillas and Member Victor P. Renwick of the Construction Industry Arbitration Commission, Caldrivane City.
[signature]Typed names on signature lines
A name typed in a plain face on a signature line, or a conformed /s/ signature, is not a
signature: it is printed text. It MUST be rendered as that text, verbatim — /s/ included — and
MUST NOT be given a [signature] placeholder, which would assert handwriting the page does not
show.
typed names on signature lines
Marcus Feldkirk, Renata Solis, Owen Tarrant typed in a plain face on the three signature lines
of an approval box, with typed dates. No handwriting anywhere.
Source page
Expected output · excerpt, the approval box
…
Read and approved by
Marcus Feldkirk 12/03/2025 Renata Solis 12/04/2025 Owen Tarrant 12/04/2025
<!-- … -->
Read and approved by
Marcus Feldkirk 12/03/2025
Renata Solis 12/04/2025
Owen Tarrant 12/04/2025a conformed /s/ signature
By: /s/ Dana R. Whitfield in underlined italics on the signature line, the typed name beneath.
The /s/ convention stands for a signature that was never inked.
Source page
Expected output · excerpt, the signature block
…
DATED: February 9, 2024 WHITFIELD & COLE, LLP
By: /s/ Dana R. Whitfield Dana R. Whitfield (SBN 214977) dwhitfield@whitfieldcole.example 2200 Bayport Avenue, Suite 940 Telephone: (415) 256-2884 Facsimile: (415) 256-2885
Attorney for Plaintiff Marguerite Alcazar
…
<!-- … -->
DATED: February 9, 2024 WHITFIELD & COLE, LLP
By: <u>/s/ Dana R. Whitfield</u>
Dana R. Whitfield (SBN 214977)
dwhitfield@whitfieldcole.example
2200 Bayport Avenue, Suite 940
Telephone: (415) 256-2884
Facsimile: (415) 256-2885
Attorney for Plaintiff Marguerite Alcazar
<!-- … -->Neighbouring rules, and how they differ
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Rule id text-signatures · text marks