Add Text to PDF, Annotate & Sign
Write on a PDF, annotate, proofread or add a signature
Write on a PDF, annotate, proofread or add a signature
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About Add Text to PDF, Annotate & Sign
Filling in a form that has no fields, marking up a draft and signing on the line all look like “putting something on the page”, but a PDF stores them in two different ways. Text and hand-drawn signatures are merged into the page content; comments and proofreading marks are attached as annotation objects that sit beside the page. Which tab to use depends mostly on whether the recipient should be able to edit or delete what you added.
What each of the four tabs leaves behind
- Add text: text, ticks (✓), crosses (✗) and dates are drawn as vectors where you click. Latin text uses Helvetica, which covers Spanish, French and German accents; Korean uses an embedded subset of Noto Sans KR, and Japanese kana and kanji a subset of Noto Sans JP. A line that mixes Hangul and kanji is drawn in runs, each with the font that has those characters. On rotated pages, items land the way they appear on screen.
- Annotate: highlight, underline, sticky note, rectangle, ellipse and pen are added as standard annotations with their own appearance streams, so they look the same in every viewer. Add an author name and it shows in the comments list of Acrobat and similar viewers, where the recipient can reply or delete.
- Proofreading marks: delete is a StrikeOut annotation, insert is a Caret (^), and replace is a strike-out with the new wording attached as a note. The marked area is the box you drag; it does not snap to lines of text.
- Handwritten signature: drawn strokes stay as vectors; a photo of a signature on paper has its light areas (brightness 215 and above) made transparent and its margins trimmed. The signature is stored once and reused, so stamping it on every page barely changes the file size.
A drawn signature is not a digital signature
The signature tab adds a picture of a signature. The file cannot prove who put it there or whether the document changed afterwards, and nothing stops the same image from being pasted into another document. If you need tamper evidence, the document has to be signed with a certificate — a digital signature over the document's hash. The PDF Signatures Explained guide covers the difference and how various legal systems treat each kind.
All four tabs save the file again, so using them on a PDF that already carries a digital signature will break that signature's validation. Add text and signature images first; apply any certificate signature last.
Worked examples
Inserting a photographed signature
- Input
White paper (brightness about 230), a shadowed patch (about 190), black pen stroke (about 40)- Output
Paper becomes fully transparent, the shadow stays as a roughly 28%-opaque grey, the pen stroke is unchanged
Brightness 215 and above is transparent, 125 and below is opaque, and the range between is proportional: (215 − 190) ÷ 90 ≈ 0.28. The shadow therefore leaves a faint smudge; retaking the photo in even light is the reliable fix.
How to use it
- Open the PDF and choose a tab: add text, annotate, proofreading marks or signature.
- Click or drag on the preview to place items, then drag or use the arrow keys to fine-tune.
- Apply, check positions in the result preview, and save.
Frequently asked questions
Can I edit the text later?
Text and signatures are merged into the page and cannot be moved in a normal viewer. If changes are likely, keep the original, or use something editable such as a note in the annotate tab.
Can I type Japanese or Chinese?
Japanese, yes: kana and kanji are drawn with an embedded Noto Sans JP subset. Chinese text in the characters Noto Sans JP covers also renders, but with Japanese glyph shapes, and rare characters outside that font can still be missing.
Will annotations print?
They are saved with the print flag set, so they print by default. Choosing to print without comments gives you the original page only.
Do ticks and crosses show up in search?
No. The ✓ and ✗ marks are drawn as stroked paths rather than font characters, so they look the same in every viewer but are invisible to search and copy. Dates and typed text are real text and can be searched.
Where does the signature land on pages of different sizes?
The signature box is remembered as a fraction of the page size. If a landscape page or an A3 sheet sits among A4 pages, the signature goes to the same relative spot — say, bottom right — on each, so check every signed page in the result preview.
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