How to annotate a PDF on a Mac with Preview

2 min read · 9 steps · Updated 3 October 2026

Preview, the app that opens PDFs on every Mac, is also a capable PDF editor for everyday jobs: adding a remark to a contract, marking a passage in a paper, drawing an arrow on a plan, blacking out an account number. Nothing has to be installed or paid for.

Menu names are from recent versions of macOS, where the settings app is called System Settings.

Step by step

1. Open the PDF in Preview

   Double-click the PDF. If it opens in another app, right-click the file and choose Open With, Preview.

   Done

2. Show the Markup toolbar

   Click the Show Markup Toolbar button at the top right of the window. It looks like the tip of a pen in a circle. A second row of tools appears.

   Done

3. Add text

   Click the Text tool, the T in a box. A text box appears in the middle of the page. Type, then drag the box where you want it. The Text Style button, marked Aa, changes font, size and colour.

   Done

4. Highlight text

   Select a passage with the pointer and click the Highlight button. The small arrow beside it offers other colours, underline and strikethrough.

   Done

5. Draw shapes and arrows

   Click Shapes and choose a line, arrow, rectangle, oval, speech bubble or star. Drag it into place and use the blue handles to resize it. With Sketch you draw freehand, and Preview tidies a rough circle or arrow into a clean one.

   Done

6. Add a note

   Click the Note tool and type your comment. It appears as a small coloured square that opens when clicked. Control-click the note to change its colour.

   Done

7. Black out sensitive text

   Click the Redact tool and drag over the text to hide. Unlike a black rectangle drawn on top, redaction removes the text itself when the document is closed, so it cannot be copied out from underneath.

   Done

8. Change or delete an annotation

   Click an annotation to select it, then drag it, or press Delete to remove it.

   Done

9. Save

   Choose File, Save. The annotations stay editable in Preview. To send a version nobody can alter, choose File, Print, PDF, Save as PDF, which fixes the annotations into the page.

   Done

Good to know

Keep an untouched copy of important documents. Use File, Duplicate before you start.

The same toolbar holds your signature: how to sign a PDF on a Mac. For forms: how to fill out a PDF form on a Mac.

If the text in a scanned PDF cannot be selected, it is only a picture of text. Our free tool makes it searchable in the browser: OCR PDF.

Related: how to save anything as a PDF on a Mac and how to combine PDF files on a Mac.

In short: Preview, Show Markup Toolbar, then Text, Highlight, Shapes, Sketch, Note, Redact or Sign. Click an annotation to move or delete it. File, Save, or print to PDF to fix them in place.