Drawing freehand on a PDF and rubbing it out
The pen in PDF by Zaweba stays in hand until you press Esc, and the eraser cuts away only the freehand strokes it passes over, never the page.
Some comments are easiest to make by hand. A quick sketch of how a layout should look, a circle round a face in a group photo, a tick in a margin or a few handwritten words on a tablet. The freehand pen in PDF by Zaweba is made for those moments, and the eraser goes with it.
The pen stays in hand until you press Esc, so you can draw several strokes without picking it up again each time. The eraser cuts away freehand strokes under its path, leaving everything else alone.
Drawing with the pen
Pick the pen from the Comment tools and start drawing. Each stroke is added as you go, and because the pen stays selected, you can write a word, draw a shape and add an arrow in one go. When you are done, press Esc to put the pen down and go back to selecting.
A mouse works, but a pen tablet or a touch screen with a stylus feels far more natural, especially for handwriting. Zooming in before you draw gives you finer control, since your hand moves further for the same distance on the page.
Rubbing out
The eraser works on freehand strokes only. Drag it over a stroke and it cuts away the part under its path. That makes it more like a real rubber than a delete key: you can remove the end of a line or a stray mark without redrawing the whole sketch.
Because it only touches freehand drawing, you cannot accidentally erase the page content, typed text or other comments. That makes it safe to use quickly on a busy page.
Sketches, photos and marking work
Sketching is the obvious one. Showing a designer where to move a picture or how to rearrange a form is often faster with three lines than three sentences.
Marking photos and plans is another. Circle an area, draw a route, cross out a part that should go.
Teachers and students use the pen for marking and working out on worksheets, and for handwritten notes in the margins of reading material.
Choosing pen or shapes
If neatness matters, shapes are often better. A rectangle or arrow drawn with the shape tools is straight and tidy, and its colour, width and line endings can be set precisely. The pen is for speed and for marks that do not fit a neat shape.
A common mix is shapes and callouts for the formal points and the pen for quick sketches and personal marks.
Set the colour and line width before you start, using comment properties. A thin dark line suits handwriting; a thicker coloured line suits circling things on a photo.
Draw at a comfortable zoom. Too far out and lines wobble; too far in and you lose the sense of the page.
Use the eraser to tidy rather than starting over. Trimming an overshoot or removing a stray dot keeps the rest of the sketch intact.
How it fits
Freehand drawings are comments. They appear in the Comments panel, can be filtered by kind or author, given a status and replied to, and can be exported with the rest of the comments. When the document is final, flattening comments fixes the drawings into the page.
It is worth knowing that a drawn signature is just a drawing. For a signature that proves who signed and that the document has not changed, use digital signing instead.
When the pen gets in the way
Forgetting the pen is still in hand is the commonest. If clicks are leaving marks where you meant to select something, press Esc.
Using the pen for everything is the other. A page full of hand-drawn boxes and arrows is harder to read than one with neat shapes. Keep the pen for the jobs it does best.
Quick to pick up and safe to rub out, the pen and eraser in PDF by Zaweba bring the freedom of a pencil to any PDF.
