Exam & application uploads
A signature image that your exam form will actually accept.
Application portals — university admissions, civil-service exams, banking KYC, visa forms — reject signature uploads for boring reasons: wrong pixel size, file over the KB limit, white box instead of transparency. Here is what they usually ask for and how to produce exactly that.
The short answer
Most portals want a small JPG or PNG, commonly somewhere around 140 × 60 to 400 × 150 pixels and 10–50 KB, signed in blue or black ink on plain white. Your own admit card or application notice is the only authoritative source — limits change between exams and years — so read its photo/signature specification first, then set those exact numbers in the SignGen generator: canvas width and height for the pixels, and the KB cap for the file size.
Typical requirements (check yours before relying on these)
| Item | Commonly requested | Why portals ask |
|---|---|---|
| File format | JPG/JPEG most often; PNG sometimes accepted | Uniform processing in their document pipeline |
| Dimensions | Roughly 140×60 px up to 400×150 px | The signature is printed tiny on an admit card or ID |
| File size | Often 10–50 KB, some as low as 4 KB or up to 100 KB | Millions of uploads; storage and bandwidth |
| Background | Plain white | Printed forms assume white paper |
| Ink | Blue or black ballpoint look | Matches a pen signature scanned from paper |
These are ranges seen across many public application notices, not a promise about your exam. If your notice gives a size in centimetres and a DPI (for example 3.5 × 1.5 cm at 200 DPI), multiply: 3.5 cm ≈ 1.38 in × 200 ≈ 276 px wide. Set the result as the canvas size.
How to hit an exact limit with SignGen
- Sign it. On the generator, type your name in a style you can also reproduce on paper — your exam-day signature on the attendance sheet should look like the uploaded one — or draw your real signature.
- Set the pixels. Enter the portal's width and height. The file exports at 2× for sharpness; if the portal checks exact pixel dimensions, halve its numbers in the boxes so the 2× export lands exactly on them (a 280 × 120 requirement → enter 140 × 60).
- Set the KB cap. Type the maximum file size. The exporter shrinks the PNG until it fits and reports the final byte count; if the cap is extremely small it may switch to a white-background JPEG — which, for exam portals that demand white anyway, is usually the format they wanted all along.
- Upload the downloaded file and keep a copy: many candidates need the identical image again at document verification.
Already have a signature image that is too big?
If you scanned or photographed your signature and the file is simply overweight, you do not need to remake it — shrink the existing image to an exact target size with CompressToKB, which compresses images to a precise KB budget. And if the scan has a grey or shadowed background, it is usually faster to redraw the signature in the generator than to clean the photo.
Frequently asked questions
My portal says the signature must be in JPG, but the generator gives PNG first. What do I do?
Set a KB cap: when a small cap forces the exporter off PNG, it produces a white-background JPEG and says so in the result line. Alternatively export the PNG and convert it — but the built-in route keeps the size under your cap in one step.
Should the uploaded signature match the one I sign on exam day?
Yes. Invigilators and document-verification officers compare the uploaded specimen with the signature you make in front of them. Pick (or draw) a version you can reproduce quickly and consistently — an over-decorated style you cannot repeat by hand is a liability, not a flex.
The portal rejected my image even though the size looks right. Why?
The usual culprits: the file is a PNG renamed to .jpg (portals check the real format), the dimensions are off by a few pixels, or the image has a transparent background where white was specified. Re-export with exact numbers rather than renaming files.
Is a generated signature acceptable for an exam form?
Portals ask for a specimen of the signature you will use — drawn mode captures your own hand, which is the safest choice for anything that will later be compared against a live signature. Typed styles are better suited to documents, artwork and email. Follow your exam's instructions where they specify how the specimen must be produced.