Sign, annotate, erase and watermark

The Markup button on a document holds four tools: Sign, Annotate, Erase pen and Watermark. They all work on your iPhone, and they’re all free.

What it is

Open a document and tap Markup in the toolbar at the bottom:

Tool	What it does
Sign	Places one of your saved signatures on a page. You can move it and resize it.
Annotate	Lets you draw with a pen, highlight, type text, and erase what you added.
Erase pen	Removes blue, red or green pen ink from a page and leaves the black print.
Watermark	Opens the Share sheet with a watermark added to the PDF you’re about to send.

Signatures and annotations are kept as a layer on top of the page, so you can move or remove them later. They show in the Pages view, in the full-screen page, on the document’s cover and page thumbnails, and are drawn into every PDF and JPG you share, and into PowerPoint slides. Word and Excel files are built from the page text, so they leave signatures and annotations out.

When to use it

Sign a form, a lease or a delivery note without printing it.
Highlight the amount due or circle a date before you send a bill to someone.
Clean up a form someone already filled in with a blue pen.
Mark a copy as “Copy” or “Draft” so it can’t pass for the original.

Step by step

Save your signature first

To sign a file you imported (a PDF or a Word file, for example), open it and tap Sign. See Sign a file you imported below.

Your signatures live in Account → Scanning → Signatures. You can also get there from Sign, with the New button in the tray.

Open Account → Scanning → Signatures.
Tap Draw and sign with your finger (or Apple Pencil on iPad), or tap From photo.
With From photo, sign on plain white paper, then choose Take photo or Choose from Photos. Paperwise lifts the ink off the paper.
You see “Signature saved”. Add as many as you like, for example a full signature and your initials.

To delete a saved signature, tap the trash button on it (or touch and hold it), then confirm with Delete. Pages you’ve already signed keep it.

Sign a document

Open the document and tap Markup → Sign.
Pick the page in the strip at the bottom.
Tap one of your signatures in the tray to place it on the page.
Drag it into place. Pinch it, or drag its corner, to change its size.
To remove a placed signature, tap it, then tap Delete (the trash button).
Tap Done. Paperwise asks how to Save your signature:
- Sign this document: the signature stays on this document. You see “Signed”.
- Save as a signed copy: a copy of the document is made with the signature, in the same folder and with the same privacy settings, and opens. Its title ends in “(signed)”. The original stays exactly as it was, without the signature.
- Cancel: you stay on the signing screen.

If you only moved or removed signatures that were already there, Done saves without asking. If you changed nothing, Done just closes.

No saved signature yet? Tap New in the tray to make one; you come back to the page as soon as it’s saved.

Sign a file you imported

Open the file (a PDF, an image, or a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file) and tap Sign under its preview.
Paperwise turns its pages into a scan and opens the signing screen. Nothing is added to your vault yet.
Place your signature as above, then tap Done and choose:
- Replace the file with the signed version: the signed scan takes the file’s title and folder, and the original file moves to Recently deleted, where you can restore it for 30 days.
- Keep the original and add the signed version: the signed scan is added next to the file, with the same title and folder.
- Cancel: you stay on the signing screen.
Paperwise opens the signed scan.

Tap Cancel at the top instead and nothing is kept: no scan is added, and the file is unchanged.

The “Signed” label

A document with at least one signature shows Signed in the line under its title and on its card, next to the page count (“2 pages · Signed”). Remove its last signature and the label goes away. Documents in Hidden show it too.

Annotate a page

Tap Markup → Annotate.
Choose a tool:
- Pen: pick a colour and a thickness, then draw.
- Highlighter: pick a colour and drag across the text.
- Text: tap where the text should go, type it (“Type your text”), choose a colour and size, then tap Done.
- Eraser: tap an annotation to remove it.
Use Undo and Redo as you go.
Tap Done to save. You see “Saved”. The page’s thumbnail and the document’s cover are updated with your annotations.

Remove pen ink

Tap Markup → Erase pen.
Choose the pen colours to remove: Blue, Red and/or Green. Black print stays as it is.
Tap Remove ink. Paperwise shows how much it removed. Drag across the page to compare before and after.
Tap Apply to keep the result, or Cancel.
Changed your mind? Tap Undo in the “Ink removed” message, or the Undo button on the screen, before you leave.

Add a watermark

Tap Markup → Watermark. The Share sheet opens on PDF, with Watermark turned on.
Type the text, for example “Copy”, “Draft” or “Confidential”.
Choose Diagonal (across the middle of each page) or Footer (small, at the bottom), and an opacity: 10%, 15%, 25% or 40%. A small preview shows the first page.
Tap Share PDF at the bottom and choose where to send it.

The watermark is stamped on the PDF you send. The document in your vault stays clean.

Free and Pro

Sign, Annotate, Erase pen and Watermark are free.

Privacy

All four tools run on your iPhone. Nothing is sent to our server.
Your saved signatures, like your signed pages, stay on this iPhone, encrypted by Paperwise with its own key. If sync (Pro) or the encrypted iCloud backup is on, they’re included there too, encrypted on your iPhone before they leave it.
Remember that a signature in a PDF you send is a copy: whoever receives it can keep it.

Tips

Sign on plain white paper with a dark pen for the cleanest From photo result.
On iPad, Apple Pencil works in Sign and Annotate. See Apple Pencil.
Use Highlighter rather than Pen over text: it stays readable underneath.
Erase pen works on pages that have finished cleaning up. It changes the page image only: signatures and annotations you added are a separate layer and aren’t touched.

What if…

What if Erase pen says it didn’t find any ink?

Paperwise didn’t find ink of the colours you chose. Try adding another colour. Black ink is never removed. If the page says it’s still being cleaned up, wait a moment and try again.

What if I want to undo Erase pen after closing it?

Undo works only while Erase pen is open. Once you leave, the ink is gone from that page. If you need the original, scan the page again.

What if “From photo” can’t find my signature?

You’ll see “Couldn’t find a signature in that photo.” Sign on plain white paper, with nothing else in the picture, in good light, and try again.

What if I can’t see the Watermark switch?

The watermark is part of the PDF options. Make sure PDF (or Searchable PDF, or Password PDF) is selected at the top of the Share sheet.