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In this tutorial, we’ll explain how to add shapes to a PDF — add a circle, square, rectangle or other shapes to PDF. You can annotate PDFs by using shapes to draw attention to or hide text and content on a PDF, and you can format the shape in unlimited ways.
Insert Shapes to Annotate a PDF
If you’re editing a PDF, adding shapes to it may be useful for several reasons. It’s possible that you’re making specific edits to a document and want to highlight a section of text or cover up a piece of content. Perhaps your document just needs images in order to make the content more visible.
Whatever your reason may be, you can add shapes to documents using PDF.Live’s online editor. This editor has several functions for making changes and securing and editing PDFs entirely through your web browser. We’ll be showing you how you can use this powerful editor to add shapes to a PDF and edit the formatting settings of those shapes.
- Upload your PDF to the online editor
Either drag and drop your PDF from where it’s located on your computer to the online editor or click Select File to Edit and navigate to where the PDF is currently stored on your computer. Once it’s uploaded, click Edit PDF and the PDF.Live editor tool will open with your PDF available to edit.
- Navigate to the Edit tab and select Add shapes.
PDF.Live organizes editing options at the top of the screen like most document editors. Its editing functions are organized in several tabs. To add shapes, select the Edit tab and click Add shapes to see the different shapes you can add to your PDF.
- Select a shape and click and drag on your document to draw a shape on your PDF.
Upon drawing a shape on your PDF, you can click and drag the dotted outline of the shape to change the size and boundaries. You can also click the middle of the shape itself and drag it to a new location.
- Change the formatting settings of a shape by right-clicking it and selecting Properties.
From here, a dialogue box will appear with a few formatting settings to change the appearance of your shape.
For example, you can adjust the Fill Color and make a shape you’ve drawn be filled in with a color. You can also adjust the border or border color of the shape. Experiment with these settings to get the perfect shape appearance that you’re looking for.
After you’ve drawn a couple of shapes, you may want to go back and make some edits to shapes you’ve made in the past. To do this, click Edit text & image & shapes in the Edit bar.
You can then once again select shapes that you’ve made and adjust their positioning or right-click them to change the formatting settings.