Adding free drawing is a flexible way of annotating your working PDF documents, allowing you to insert notes and advice more intuitively. Yet finding the right tool to draw your PDF is important, as it’s vital to make sure the drawing marks are clean, easy, and glanceable. 

Draw on PDF on Mac Online/Offline

In this post, we’ll discuss how to draw on PDF on Mac using 3 easy to use methods, they are completely free so you can get started right away. Moreover, online and offline methods are both provided, so you’ll find the solution whatever the working condition.

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Online Using PDFgear

In today’s world, online services make things a whole lot easier. In the first tutorial, we’ll be using an online PDF drawer tool, PDFgear. PDFgear is a web-based PDF drawer that allows you to draw your PDF document in a web browser. 

PDFgear is compatible with Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, etc. The use of PDFgear is completely free and there’re various PDF management features available as well. 

Now learn from the 3 simple steps to draw on PDF on Mac online with PDFgear.

Step 1. Go to PDFgear PDF Editor

Go to the PDFgear PDF Editor tool, drag and drop your file, or hit the Choose files button to import the PDF document you intend to draw on,

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Online/Offline: 3 Free and Easy Methods

Go to PDFgear PDF Editor

Step 2. Draw on PDF Using PDFgear

Once you’re in the PDFgear PDF Editor, hit the Add or Edit annotations button from the upper-right side, and hit the brush icon to enable the drawing feature. And then you can add the customizable free drawings to your PDF document

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Online/Offline: 3 Free and Easy Methods

Draw on PDF on Mac Using PDFgear

Step 3. Download the Drawn PDF Document

Don’t forget you can change color, line border thickness, and annotation types while drawing.

When you’re satisfied with your drawing, hit the Print or Download button from the upper-right corner to get the drawn PDF document. 

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Online/Offline: 3 Free and Easy Methods

Export Drawn PDF from PDFgear

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Offline Using Preview App

For those who don’t have a stable internet connection, there’s a practical native option for you to do basic document editing on your Macbook or Mac computer.

It’s called Preview, a PDF reader app that is preinstalled on Mac devices. With it, not only can you read and view your PDF document, but PDF editing and PDF annotating options are also available.

In the following tutorial, you’ll learn how to draw on PDF on Mac offline with the Preview app, in simple steps.

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Online/Offline: 3 Free and Easy Methods

Draw on PDF on Mac Using Preview App

Step 1. Open the PDF document you intend to draw on using the Preview app on Mac.

Step 2. Hit the Show Markup Toolbar button, if it’s not shown already.

Step 3. Hit the Draw option from the Markup Toolbar 

Step 4. Now you can add free drawings in different styles to your PDF document by moving your mouse or fingers on the trackpad.

Step 5. If you’re using a trackpad, press your finger more firmly so you can draw a heavier line.

Please note: While the Preview app is a handy document drawing option on Mac, it falls short in terms of versatility. For more PDF drawing features, you may need another offline option.

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Offline Using PDFgear Desktop 

Seeking the more advanced document drawing features on your Mac device? Look no further than PDFgear Desktop. PDFgear Desktop is the software version of the powerful online PDF management tool PDFgear, and it’s packed with additional features, which makes it worth the installation.

PDFgear Desktop allows you to draw on PDF on Mac offline, which means you can use more professional PDF drawing features without an internet connection.

PDFgear Desktop is designed for Mac devices, and it’s compatible with Windows OS as well.  

Step 1. Go to PDFgear official website: https://www.pdfgear.com/, download and install PDFgear Desktop on your Mac device. 

Step 2. Launch PDF gear on your computer, and hit the top Open File button to import the PDF document you intend to draw on Mac.

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Online/Offline: 3 Free and Easy Methods

Import PDF to PDFgear

Step 3. Once the imported PDF is loaded, you’ll enter the PDF editing screen where you can use Line, Rectangle, Oval Ink, etc. to draw your PDF documents well. You can access them under the Annotate category.

Step 4. Customization options are right beneath the drawing options, allowing you to adjust the drawing color, line thickness, and more.

Moreover, various color presets and color pickers are supported.

How to Draw on PDF on Mac Online/Offline: 3 Free and Easy Methods

Draw on PDF on Mac in PDFgear Desktop

PDFgear Desktop is a complete PDF management tool that does more than drawing PDFs. There’re also PDF converting, compressing, and annotating features such as converting PDF to JPG offline.

The Conclusion

That’ll be the best 3 methods for you to draw on your PDF documents on Mac computers and Macbooks. In a nutshell, PDFgear is the ideal option if you’re connected to the internet, the Preview app is suitable for simple document drawing purposes, and the PDFgear Desktop works best for the advanced document drawing needs in offline conditions.

So choose the method as per your need, give it a try, and let us know if the method is helpful, good luck!

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iLounge author Lucy Bennett

Lucy Bennett is a Contributing Editor at iLounge. She has been writing about Apple and technology for over six years. Prior to joining iLounge, Lucy worked as a writer for several online publications.