Pen: Draw with a pen. Highlighter: Tap and drag to highlight parts of the screen. Line (only available on tablet): Tap and drag to draw a line. Arrow (only available on tablet when sharing a document or phone, or when viewing a shared screen): Tap and drag to draw an arrow. Rectangle (only available on tablet): Tap and drag to draw a rectangle. In addition to add ready-made shapes to a PDF on Mac, you can also use PDFelement to draw free-form shapes. For this feature, you need to use the Eraser or Pencil tools. The pencil will allow you to draw free hand shapes, while the eraser allows you to correct and revise the shapes as needed. If you want to draw and sketch more freehand-like, you will need to purchase a drawing/painting/sketching app, as one example Autodesk SketchBook Pro, and you would need to purchase some sort of external USB drawing tablet/stylus combo like these made by Wacom.
Essential drawing app for MacMacs have always been known as creative machines for creative people. It's likely the reason you actually bought one! So naturally Macs offer a wide variety of opportunities for you to express yourself, whether that's building apps, writing prose, or drawing.
Having a good drawing app for Mac is priceless. Retina screens, accurate touchpads, and native support for a variety of inputs make sketching on Mac a pleasure. But with so many drawing programs to choose from, how do you pick the right one? Welcome to the no-sweat guide to the best free drawing software for Mac!
Best drawing, design, and editing apps
With Setapp, you don't have to choose only one — get a large choice of the best drawing software to support your creativity flow.
The Best Drawing Programs On Mac Today
It's not easy to pinpoint the best drawing app for Mac. Is it one of the free drawing programs? Is it made for simple drawings or lets you paint on Mac beautifully? The level of skill has to be considered as well.
The collection of drawing apps below features something that appeals to everyone, from the Mac equivalent of Paint you can find on Windows to a simple drawing pad for Mac to the likes of Sketch software that can be used by professional designers too.
Communicate with the markup feature in Preview
If you just want to do a rough sketch for Mac or a few simple drawings, you don't necessarily need to go about downloading lots of drawing apps, you can just use a drawing app for Mac you've already got — Preview. Cookie 5 8 1 – protect your online privacy.
While most of us think of Preview as an image or PDF viewer, it's also packs a basic toolset for annotating, drawing, and sketching. To see what you can do with Preview:
- Open an image, document, or just a white sheet in Preview
- Click Show Markup Toolbar in its top menu
- From here you can choose tools, shapes, colors, thickness, type, and more to make necessary adjustments or create something completely new
- Save and share your image
For those who don't intend to draw complicated scenes, Preview might just might be enough. For everyone else, there are, of course, more powerful third-party apps.
Get nostalgic with Paintbrush
Lots of us remember the simplicity and versatility of Microsoft Paint. Macs used to have a similar app too called MacPaint (that's been discontinued). Well, good news is some enthusiastic developers took the matter into their own hands and essentially recreated a Paint app for Mac — Paintbrush.
Drawing App For Mac
This Mac equivalent of Paint will strike you as a complete duplicate of that old software you used to love. It features all the same tools, including rectangular and oval shapes, paint bucket, pencil, spray, lines, etc. You can also easily switch and add colors to your palette as you go.
Make professional mockups with Sketch
If you've already outgrown simple drawings you can do with Preview and Paintbrush, and want to move higher — try Sketch.
Sketch took the world by storm just a few years ago, when they essentially introduced a viable alternative to complex apps like Adobe Illustrator and targeted it specifically to digital design professionals.
Everything you do in the Sketch program is done in vector, which means all shapes are infinitely resizable, in contrast to the raster graphics of Paintbrush. With Sketch for Mac, you can design high-fidelity mockups for your website, prototype your iOS app, or just create complex illustrations.
You can download and try the Sketch software for free, but after a month, you'll be required to pay the annual license fee, which is a big downside if you don't plan to use the app regularly. In addition, Sketch for Mac is not the most accessible app for beginners and it's not exactly a drawing app for Mac due to its vector nature.
Create digital art with MediBang Paint Pro
Perhaps an equivalent of Sketch, but in raster graphics, is MediBang Paint Pro. This drawing software for Mac allows you to execute your dreams beautifully with over 50 custom brushes as well as its extensive support for layers and fonts.
Originally developed for comic creators, MediBang Paint Pro got quickly adopted by everyone looking for a versatile drawing pad for Mac and is hailed by many as the best free drawing software around. However, since it was built for the purpose of creating comics, you might face a few problems adapting it to your needs — it's definitely one quirky drawing app for Mac. Another issue is the app's slow update release cycle. So far, it's been unavailable to macOS Catalina and macOS Big Sur users due to the lack of security updates from the developers. Mac computer word processing. This means you can only use MediBang Paint Pro on macOS 10.13 or older.
Set your imagination free with Tayasui Sketches
Talking about the best drawing programs, it's simply impossible to avoid Tayasui Sketches. This intuitive sketch program is universally loved by painters, designers, illustrators, and art aficionados alike.
Ultimate drawing app for Mac
Draw on your Mac's screen like on canvas with Tayasui Sketches. Mix colors and experiment with limitless layers!
Tayasui Sketches makes it easy to bring what you have in mind to reality with its support for unlimited layers, infinite undos, smart rules, and a wide variety of drawing tools. If you want to paint on Mac, nothing else comes close to representing the physical experience of applying colors to paper than this drawing software for Mac.
To start your drawing pad for Mac with Tayasui Sketches:
- Open a new document
- Try out all the different tools from the sidebar, from a fine pen to an airbrush
- Use supporting menus to modify your currently selected tool and mix just the right color
With just a bit of practice, you'll see why Tayasui Sketches beats all the free drawing programs out there. Time for your digital painting skills to skyrocket!
Save all the cool colors with Sip
Regardless of the drawing software for Mac you choose to use in the end, one of the most difficult things to do is going to be finding the right colors out there. Sometimes, you might come across a beautiful color you might use in the future, but where do you save it? Sip.
Sip is the most intuitive, handy, and non-intrusive palette organizer available for Mac. This little utility lives in your Mac's menu bar, where it saves all the colors you like and simultaneously features a tiny color picker on the side of your screen, which makes Sip instantly available in any sketch program for Mac, like Tayasui Sketches, for example.
By now, you should be well-equipped to start on your Mac drawing journey, using the selection of the drawing software for Mac listed above, whether it's a simple annotation or a large-scale digital painting.
Best of all, you can try Tayasui Sketches and Sip for free by signing up for a free seven-day trial on Setapp, a platform for more than 200 unique creative Mac apps that literally help you bring your dreams to reality. Why wait, check it out now!
Meantime, prepare for all the awesome things you can do with Setapp.
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You can also use Select and Scroll with Apple Pencil to select objects and scroll in your document.
Turn handwriting into text with Scribble
With Scribble, you can turn handwriting into text with an Apple Pencil on a supported iPad.* When you pair an Apple Pencil with an iPad, Scribble is on by default. To check the Scribble setting, or to turn it off, go to Settings > Apple Pencil on your iPad.
- In a document, tap Apple Pencil in the body of a word-processing document where you want to write. Or tap in a text box, shape, or in a table cell in a word-processing or page layout document.
- Tap the Scribble tool in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, then start writing.
As you write with Apple Pencil, you can also delete words, insert text, and more:
- To delete a word, scratch it out.
- To insert text between words, tap and hold in a text area, then start writing when a space opens.
- To join or separate characters, draw a vertical line between them.
- To select text, circle it or draw a line through it. Drag the selection handles to change the selection.
The toolbar also has buttons to indent, format, and align text, as well as to insert page breaks, bookmarks, and more.
* This feature is available only in English, Traditional Chinese, and Simplified Chinese with iPadOS 14 or later.
Add a drawing
You can draw in a document with Apple Pencil (on supported devices), or with your finger.
- To draw with Apple Pencil, tap your Pencil on the page. To use your finger, or if you've turned on Select and Scroll, tap the Insert button , tap the Media button , then tap Drawing.
- Tap one of the four drawing tools at the bottom of the screen: the pen, pencil, crayon, or the fill tool.
- To draw with a different stroke size and opacity, tap one of the drawing tools twice, then tap a new stroke size. Or drag the slider to adjust the opacity.
- You can draw with a different color:
- For iPhone, tap the colored circle, then choose a preset color at the bottom of the Colors screen. Or use the controls to mix your own colors, then tap the Add button to save the color as a favorite.
- For iPad OS 14, tap a preset color or tap the color wheel to choose a custom color. Use the controls to mix your own color, then tap the Add button to save the color as a favorite. To remove a favorite, touch and hold its color dot, then tap Delete.
- For iPadOS 13, tap the color well, then either tap a color in the grid or swipe left and create a custom color.
- For iPhone, tap the colored circle, then choose a preset color at the bottom of the Colors screen. Or use the controls to mix your own colors, then tap the Add button to save the color as a favorite.
- To erase, tap the eraser, then tap it again to choose one of the erasers:
- To erase pixels, tap Pixel Eraser, then tap or drag on the drawing.
- To erase a whole stroke, tap the Object Eraser, then tap the stroke or object fill you want to erase.
- To undo the last action, tap the Undo button .
- When you're finished, tap Done.
To continue drawing with Apple Pencil, just start drawing on the page.
Resize and move your drawing
After you add the drawing, you can resize and move it:
- To resize the drawing, tap the drawing with your finger, then drag the handles of the box.
- To move the drawing, tap the drawing with your finger, then drag it.
Edit parts of a drawing
- Tap the drawing, then tap Edit Drawing from the pop-up menu.
- Tap the selection tool in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, then tap or drag around drawing you want to edit. An outline appears around the selection.
- Tap an option in the pop-up menu:
- To resize a selection, tap Resize, then drag the handles of the box around the drawing.
- To make one drawing into two drawings, tap Separate in the pop-up menu.
- You can also cut, copy, paste, delete, and duplicate a selection.
Animate a drawing
You can animate a drawing so that it appears as if it's being drawn.
- If you're in drawing mode, tap Done. Otherwise, go to the next step.
- Tap the drawing to select it.
- Tap the Format button , then tap Drawing.
- Turn on Animate Drawing, then adjust other options such as duration.
- To play back the animation, tap Play or Play Drawing.
Share or save a drawing
You can share or save a drawing from your document as an image file (.png), or—if you animated the drawing—as an image or a movie file (.m4v).
- If you're in drawing mode, tap Done. Otherwise, go to the next step.
- Tap the drawing to select it, then choose Share. If you animated the drawing, choose Share as Image or Share as Movie.
- Choose how you want to send your image or movie, like with Mail or Messages. Or, choose Save Image (or Save Video for animated drawings) to save to the Photos app.
Work with drawings on a Mac
You can draw in a Pages document on iPhone and iPad. If you later open the document in Pages for Mac, you can animate the drawing, share it, or save it to Photos as an image or movie file.
Add an annotation
When you add annotations to text, objects, or table cells in a document, the annotations move with the text or objects as you edit.
- To add an annotation with Apple Pencil, tap anywhere on the page, then tap the annotation tool in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen. To use your finger, or if you've turned on Select and Scroll, tap the More button , then tap Smart Annotation.
- Tap Pen to add marks or tap Highlighter to highlight text.
- Add your annotations.
- You can also annotate with a different color:
- For iPhone, tap the colored circle, then choose a preset color at the bottom of the Colors screen. Or use the controls to mix your own colors, then tap the Add button to save the color as a favorite.
- For iPad OS 14, tap a preset color or tap the color wheel to choose a custom color. Use the controls to mix your own color, then tap the Add button to save the color as a favorite. To remove a favorite, touch and hold its color dot, then tap Delete.
- For iPadOS 13, tap the color well, then either tap a color in the grid or swipe left and create a custom color.
- To erase, tap the Eraser tool in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, then tap the annotation. To erase all annotations, tap the More button in the toolbar at the bottom of the screen, then tap Erase All Smart Annotations.
- To minimize the toolbar, drag it to the corner of the screen. To show the whole toolbar, tap the minimized toolbar.
- To scroll the page when using Apple Pencil, swipe with one finger. If you're using your finger to annotate, swipe with two fingers.
- When you're finished, tap Done.
You can delete an annotation after it's been added. Tap the annotation, then tap Delete. If you delete the text or object that you've annotated, you also delete the annotation.
If you want to just hide annotations:
- On an iPad, tap View options , then turn Smart Annotations off.
- On an iPhone or iPod touch, tap the More button , tap Smart Annotation, then tap Hide Smart Annotations.
To continue annotating with Apple Pencil, just start writing on the page.
Export a document with annotations
If you export your document as a PDF with annotations turned on, they'll appear on the PDF. https://kzwqh.over-blog.com/2021/01/free-software-to-edit-mp3-audio-files.html. Annotations don't appear on documents exported as Word, RTF, EPUB, or Pages '09 files.
Work with annotations on a Mac
If you're using iCloud to keep all your Pages documents up to date across all your devices, annotations appear in your document on all your devices. On a Mac, you can remove, show, or hide annotations when editing a document.
- To delete an annotation, select the annotation, then press Delete.
- To remove all annotations, choose Edit > Remove Smart Annotations.
- To show or hide all annotations, choose View > Show/Hide Smart Annotations.
Select and Scroll with Apple Pencil
By default, you can use Apple Pencil to start drawing or annotating. You can set Pages to use your Apple Pencil to select objects and scroll in your documents instead:
- In Pages, tap the More button .
- Tap Apple Pencil, then turn on Select and Scroll.
If your Apple Pencil supports it, you can turn on Double-Tap to Switch. With Double-Tap to Switch, just double-tap the lower part of Apple Pencil to turn Select and Scroll on and off.
Draw On Macbook
To add a drawing or annotation to a document when Select and Scroll is turned on, tap the Insert button , tap the Media button , tap Drawing, then tap a drawing or annotation tool in the toolbar.
Pages, Numbers, and Keynote each have their own setting for Select and Scroll. For example, if you turn on Select and Scroll in Pages, it doesn't affect Keynote or Numbers.
Draw On Mac From Ipad
Learn more
Draw On Mac Screen
- Add drawings to a spreadsheet or presentation in Numbers and Keynote for iPhone or iPad.
- Connect Apple Pencil with your iPad.