Resources » Annotating PDFs (How To's and Tutorials) »
In this tutorial, we’ll be showing how you can add arrows and lines to any PDF that you’re editing. You can use an arrow or line to draw attention or even strike out a certain element within a document. You can also format any arrows you create to be more suitable for your document.
Drawing Arrows and Lines on a PDF
If you’re annotating or editing a PDF, it’s often useful to be able to point to specific areas of text or images. Arrows or lines can help you make these more nuanced annotations or signifiers on a document.
Whatever your use case, inserting an arrow or line in a PDF has never been easier than with PDF.Live’s online editor. This editor has a lot of functions for drawing shapes and annotating documents. However, for the purposes of this tutorial, we’ll be focusing on how you can add arrows and lines to any PDF you’re working on.
- Upload your PDF to the PDF.Live Editor
Simply drag and drop your PDF into the editor or click Select File to Edit and navigate to where your PDF is located on your computer. Once you’ve uploaded your PDF, click Edit PDF to open the PDF.Live editor and start editing your PDF.
- Navigate to the Comment tab and click Drawing to access Arrow or Line.
PDF.Live’s editing options are stored in different tabs at the top of the screen similar to most other document editors. For drawing arrows and lines, select Comment and navigate to the Drawing functions. Here you’ll see the many shapes that PDF.Live’s editor allows you to make.
- Draw an arrow or line on your PDF.
Upon selecting Arrow or Line, your cursor will turn into a + sign, signifying that it’s currently in drawing mode. From here you can click anywhere in your PDF to mark a starting point for your arrow. Then, hold down to click and drag your cursor to where you’d like the arrow to point to. Release your click when the arrow is pointing to the correct place. Remember: Where you release your left mouse button will be where the arrow is pointing. To change the beginning, end, direction or length of the arrow, tap or click the arrow to activate the box, then drag from either point that’s highlighted.
Drawing lines works the same way. The main difference is you won’t have to be concerned about starting and ending your line in specific spots, as with arrows.
If you want to change the location of your line or arrow after you’ve made it, you can click the Hand button and re-select any shapes you’ve made at any time. From there, drag and drop your lines anywhere in your document.
To change the color, shape, or other formatting settings, once again click the Hand button. But this time, right-click your arrow or line and select Properties.
Here, you’ll be able to make changes to how your arrows and lines appear. For example, by selecting Color, you can choose a multitude of colors and shades for your line. Alternatively, you can change the opacity or style of the arrow or line.
The Start of line and End of line areas allow you to change the shapes located at the ends of your lines. You can use this to change which end of your line has the “arrow” or even the style of arrow.
Try experimenting by drawing arrows and lines of your own on a PDF and changing around the formatting settings!