You bought the Pencil for sketching and somehow it spends most of its life signing PDFs. That's fine. It's the most natural digital signature device anyone's ever made.
The trick is having a PDF tool that actually treats the Pencil as a stylus — not as a finger pretending to be one.
Why Pencil beats finger every time
Finger signatures look like a five-year-old wrote them. The capacitive contact point is too broad, the line too uniform. Pencil signatures, in Flint's signer, pick up pressure variation and tip angle — the line thins at the start, thickens through the loops, tails off at the end. It looks like your real signature.
For anything official, that's worth the thirty seconds it takes.
The signing flow
Open the PDF in Safari (drag in from Mail or Files, or upload via Flint). Tap Sign. The signature pad pops up, full width on iPad. Sign with the Pencil the way you'd sign paper — no special technique. Tap Save signature, then drop it onto the page wherever the line is.
Most contracts need initials on each page plus a full signature at the end. Flint saves both and lets you stamp them wherever needed.
Annotations beyond signing
While you've got the Pencil out, annotate any review notes — circle the bit you disagree with, scribble a comment, draw an arrow. Saves a separate Markup pass. If the document needs fields filled before signing (date, address), edit the PDF inline first — keyboard if you've got Magic Keyboard attached, on-screen if not.
FAQ
Does the Pencil's pressure sensitivity actually come through?
Yes. Flint reads the Pencil's pressure and tilt data via standard Safari touch events. The signature line varies in thickness as it would on paper, which is what makes Pencil signatures look authentic.
Which Apple Pencil models work?
All of them. Pencil 1 (Lightning), Pencil 2 (magnetic), and Pencil USB-C all work with Flint in Safari on any compatible iPad. There's no firmware setting or pairing trick — if the Pencil works in Notes, it works here.
Can I save my signature and reuse it?
Yes. Once you've signed once in a Flint session, the signature is reusable for the rest of that session — drop it on multiple pages or multiple documents. For privacy, Flint doesn't store signatures between sessions.
If you've got an iPad and a Pencil, you've got the best digital signing setup on any device. Sign your PDF in Safari and ship it.