How to Draw on PDF

A picture is worth a thousand words. Sometimes, it’s just not enough to annotate PDFs - and who wants to look at all that extra text when a simple arrow would do the trick? Whether you’re annotating a design project or signing a document, learn how to draw on a PDF in a few simple steps.

What you’ll learn.

Quick List: How to Draw on a PDF Using Adobe Acrobat

Here’s how to draw on a PDF the easy way with Adobe Acrobat.

  1. Open Adobe Acrobat. Before you begin, you’ll need to download and open Adobe Acrobat.
  2. Find and open your files. In Adobe Acrobat go to File > Open and then select your PDF.
  3. Click Comment and select Marker Icon. Go to your menu bar and click the Comment button - on the comment toolbar you should be able to select the Marker Icon.
  4. Draw. You can now draw on your PDF and simply save any additions.

In Detail: How to Draw on a PDF Using Adobe Acrobat

You don’t need a special editing tool to draw on a PDF, everything you need is on Adobe Acrobat. You can draw on any PDF document by following the below steps:

1. Before you begin, ensure that you have a licence to use Adobe Acrobat. Open Adobe Acrobat and log in to start.

2. Once Adobe Acrobat is open, select File, then Open. Here, you’ll be able to select the PDF you want to annotate.

3. Once you’ve got the PDF selected click Open to load the document in Adobe Acrobat.

4. Now that you’ve opened the document you want to draw on go to the menu bar and click Comment.

5. You should see a marker icon in the Comment toolbar. Click it to activate the Draw Free Form tool.

6. Start drawing on and annotating your PDF - you can easily erase any drawings with the undo command.

7. If you like, change the line colour, thickness and opacity in the Comment toolbar.

8. Once you’re done, simply save it as normal.

You can also draw on PDFs files using the handy online Acrobat PDF editor tool. Simply upload the file you need, then use the Drawing tool to draw and annotate. Once you’re finished, just download your new document.

Download Adobe Acrobat to start editing, compressing and annotating your important PDF documents.

Find out more about editing documents with our guide on how to write on a PDF. You can also take a look at how to compress a PDF, for those tricky-to-send documents.

Adobe has a wide range of specialist tools to help you with all your document needs. For example, converting Word to PDF.
You can see the options available here.

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FAQs

How to Draw on PDFs on a Mac?

While you can also use Adobe Acrobat and the free online PDF editing to draw on a PDF, you can also use the built-in Preview software on your Mac. It’s incredibly simple, all you need to do is:

  1. Open up your file in the Preview app.
  2. Click the Show Mark-up toolbar.
  3. Select the Draw icon and make any annotations you want.
  4. Once you’re done, just save the file as normal.

How to Draw on PDFs Using Windows 10?

If you’re on a Windows 10 device, you can draw on a PDF using the free Adobe Acrobat online editing tool. All you need to do is upload your chosen document and use the Drawing Tool. You can also download Adobe Acrobat onto your device and draw on a PDF while off-line. Simply click Comment in the toolbar, then Draw Free Form..

How Do I Do a PDF Drawing on Word?

You can draw on a PDF in Word by right clicking your document and then selecting Open with > Word. However, Word may be able to convert your PDF. If this doesn’t work, you can use the online Adobe Acrobat conversion tool.

Related Content.

Sometimes, you need to do more than draw on PDFs. You can do more than you think with Adobe’s range of PDF tools.

Here are just a few handy guides to get you started on making the most out of your PDFs.