PDFs has given users a lot of features, if you want to add some elements to your PDF for the purpose of better addressing your ideas or drawing attentions, adding shapes is probably a very useful tool to you.
We can use the free hand to create an innovative shape or add specific shapes to a PDF very easily, here is how to add shapes to PDF on Mac and Windows, free solutions will be also included in this guide.
Cisdem PDFMaster
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If you want to create custom shapes or add common shapes to a PDF, with different color, stroke, opacity, size, angle, link and more, Cisdem PDFMaster is highly recommended and today we will take a deep dive into the shape tools available in Cisdem and how to add a perfect shape to your PDF.
Cisdem PDFMaster is a robust PDF toolkit, allowing users to convert, create, compress, encrypt, decrypt and edit PDF files in one application. It is a full-featured PDF editor, users cannot only markup or annotate the file, but also edit texts and images in the file, even edit texts in a scanned PDF with OCR feture. Cisdem PDFMaster has several shape tools and it is very easy to add a shape with predefined settings.
Shapes available in Cisdem PDFMaster:
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If you want to quickly add shapes to a PDF without spending a thing, or you don’t need rich features that built in a paid PDF application, online free tools should be more than enough to add a shape to your PDF.
Most of the online PDF tools provide basic abilities to edit, create and convert PDF files, including adding notes, shapes or comments. Regarding Add PDF Shape, most of these online tools can just add approx 4 common shapes, except following 2 tools.
PDF2GO has a surprisingly feature-rich tool set, divided into 4 categories: edit, improve, convert and create. Add shapes is one feature among Edit PDF tool set, there are shapes such as pencil, line, dashed line, arrow, rectangle, ellipse, polygon.
Simple to use, Docfly is another good option to annotate, create and organize PDF files. While you cannot edit texts directly within this online PDF tool, it offers a lot of markup tools: whiteout, add check/cross mark, draw, highlight, sign, add blackout or shapes or icons. Besides the free hand draw tool, there are 5 shapes to choose from.
You may have installed Adobe Acrobat, then you can run this program to open the file and add a shape to your PDF. It allows users to add line, arrow, rectangle, oval, text callout, polygon, cloud and connected lines, also users can specify the stroke, color or other properties with properties toolbar.
If you have a Mac, Preview, the utility tool to edit PDF and images is just built into your macOS, it has basic editing features, including markup, highlight, convert, share, sign, rotate, crop and print PDFs.
It has 6 shapes: line, arrow, rectangle, square, oval, callout, star and hexagon, also allows Mac users to choose shape style and select colors.
Still confused about picking one from above list? Just make a list of must-have features that you will need to work on your PDF files. If you don’t want to lock yourself into an Adobe sign-up, Cisdem PDFMaster seems to be the best option, it has rich features, including Edit, Create, Convert, Comment, OCR, Compress, Encrypt, Decrypt, also offers the best options to add a perfect shape to your PDF with ease. Now, have a free trial on this tool by clicking on following download button, you will have an unbiased evaluation on it and make your final decision.
Connie Yu has been a columnist in the field of data recovery since 2011. She studied a lot of data loss situations and tested repeatedly to find a feasible solution tailored for each case. And her solutions are always updated to fix problems from the newest systems, devices and apps.
