India Post GDS signature specifications
Para 5 of the GDS Online Engagement Schedule-II notice gives these rules for the signature:
| Requirement | What the notice says |
|---|---|
| File format | JPG or JPEG only |
| File size | 20–100 KB |
| Recommended dimensions | 300 × 120 pixels (5:2) |
| Recommended resolution | 72–150 DPI |
| Pen and paper | Black or blue pen on plain white paper |
| Framing | Signature filling 70–80% of the frame, no borders |
Source: India Post Notification No. 17-12/2026-GDS dated 20 August 2026, GDS Online Engagement Schedule-II, July-2026, para 5. Applications for this schedule go through indiapost.gov.in/gdsonlineengagement.
The photo has its own rules: a JPG of 30–100 KB, recommended at 320 × 400 px. Make it with the India Post GDS photo resizer.
Follow the notice for the schedule you apply to. We checked the Schedule-II (July 2026) notice, not the January 2026 Schedule-I notice, and the limits have changed since January 2025. UploadWell is an independent tool and is not affiliated with India Post.
The old 20 KB limit is out of date
The older site, indiapostgdsonline.gov.in, still shows the January 2025 rules. For Schedule-II the limits are different:
| Upload | Old site (January 2025 rules) | Schedule-II notice (August 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Signature | Up to 20 KB | 20–100 KB |
| Photograph | Up to 50 KB | 30–100 KB |
The old maximum for the signature is now the minimum. A signature saved at 10 or 15 KB to suit the old rule is below the new 20 KB floor, so make a fresh file here rather than reuse an old one.
How to resize your signature for the GDS form
- Sign on plain white, unlined paper with a black or blue pen, at your normal size. Don’t draw a box or border round it.
- Photograph it in daylight with the phone held flat above the paper, so there is no tilt and no shadow from your hand or phone. A scan works too.
- Add the photo on this page. Auto-crop trims the empty paper and the clean-up turns the paper white. If thin strokes disappear, lower the clean-up strength. If grey patches remain, raise it.
- Adjust the margin if you like. Auto-crop leaves a 6% margin on each side by default, so the signature can stretch across up to 88% of the width or height. To bring it nearer the 70–80% the notice describes, raise Margin to about 10–15%.
- Leave the size at 300 × 120 px and the range at 20–100 KB, with JPG selected. The preview shows the exact file size in KB and bytes.
- Download and upload the JPG in the signature field, then check the preview there before you continue.
Keep the background on Clean white: Transparent saves a PNG, and the notice accepts JPG or JPEG only. The Draw option exists too, but the notice asks for a pen signature on white paper, so the paper method is the safer choice.
Kilobytes, padding and DPI
A 300 × 120 px image holds 36,000 pixels. With a clean white background, that often compresses to a file under the 20 KB minimum. Making the picture noisier to add bulk would make the signature worse, so when the file comes out short, UploadWell adds padding data inside the JPG until it passes 20 KB. The pixels and the signature stay exactly the same. Only the file size changes.
Some systems count 1 KB as 1,000 bytes and others as 1,024 bytes. The tool reaches the minimum in 1,024-byte kilobytes (at least 20,480 bytes) and keeps the maximum in 1,000-byte kilobytes (no more than 100,000 bytes), so the file sits inside 20–100 KB either way.
The notice also recommends 72–150 DPI. This page works in pixels: it makes the signature exactly 300 × 120 px but doesn’t write a DPI value into the JPG. If you need the file tagged, DPI Converter can set it to 150 DPI without changing the pixels. Check the KB again afterwards with the Image Size Checker.
Getting a clear signature at 300 × 120 pixels
300 × 120 px is a wide, short space, so a few habits help:
- Sign horizontally. A signature that slopes steeply upward ends up small inside a wide frame.
- Use a pen with a firm, dark line. A faint line can break up when it is shrunk to 120 pixels high. A medium black or blue gel pen holds up well.
- Leave out borders and lines. Don’t sign inside a printed box or on lined paper, as dark lines can stay in the image after clean-up.
- Choose Black or Blue ink if your strokes look grey. It turns the strokes solid after clean-up, which reads better at small sizes. Sign with a black or blue pen in the first place, as the notice asks.