Ready to work smarter, not harder?
Drawboard Projects helps teams review, mark up, and approve drawings more efficiently. Instead of juggling emails and conflicting file versions or handing over paper documents, you can collaborate in real time on one shared workspace. You’ll save time, money, and stress—and your clients will thank you.
This guide will walk you through the essential tools and workflows you need to annotate effectively and keep your markup workflows organized, clear, and fast.
Drawboard Projects turns any drawing or document into a shared, real-time workspace. When you open a file, you’re not just looking at a static PDF — you’re stepping into a collaborative environment where every comment, annotation, or markup is immediately visible to the whole team.
There are no conflicting versions floating around, no wondering if someone saw your feedback, and no tedious email chains trying to align reviewers. Hover over any annotation to see exactly who made it and when, and watch live updates unfold in real time as your team works. It’s like being in the same room, even when you're miles apart.
Providing clear feedback is the foundation of every effective review process. Drawboard Projects makes this effortless with intuitive markup tools designed to feel natural and powerful—no matter where or how you use it.
Whether you're sketching ideas, highlighting details, or flagging problems, Drawboard equips you with an adaptable suite of tools to match how you work—starting with the Favorites Bar.
Think of the Favorites Bar as your personal toolkit. Customize it with the pens, shapes, and colors you reach for most often so they’re always within easy reach. That way, you can spend more time marking and less time looking.
The Markup Toolbar holds the rest of the tools you don’t have in your Favorites Bar. It gives you easy access to everything from text and shapes to arrows and callouts, without sifting through multiple menus to find what you want.
Have a stylus for your touchscreen markup device? Our pressure-sensitive stylus support gives you tactile feedback and fine-grain control, simulating the feel of pen on paper and making technical annotations easier to add.
With these markup tools, you can communicate better with your team, not just make notes.
Chances are a lot of your workflows will involve the same tools, workflows, and annotations. Instead of manually writing or creating them every time, Drawboard lets you save them to an easily accessible Markup Library.
You can even choose who can access them with two distinct libraries:
By saving and reusing consistent visuals and language, you reduce review time and avoid repetitive work. And because libraries sync across devices, your desktop-created stamp is ready to go on your tablet when you're out on-site.
As reviews become more complex, you need a clear system for organizing feedback across your entire team. That’s where layers and filters come in. Together, they give you full control over what information you see and when.
Layers function like transparent overlays. They let you separate different types of input or feedback streams to reduce clutter and focus only on what you need.
To get started with layers, simply click the layers button in the toolbar. From there, you'll see all the available layers in the document.
Drawboard Projects offers several types of layers to help organize your work:
These layers give you the flexibility to structure your review the way that works best for your team. For example, many teams use an "Approved" layer that lets project managers quickly identify which markups have been finalized and need to be implemented in the next revision.
Sometimes a document gets busy. Between overlapping feedback, cross-team collaboration, and tight deadlines, it can be hard to know what to focus on. That’s where filtering comes in. It lets you quickly declutter your view so you can concentrate on just the input that matters right now.
These filters help streamline reviews and support more confident decision-making by giving you control over the noise.
When drawings change quickly and often, it can be easy to miss updates or overlook feedback. Drawboard Projects helps you manage revisions intuitively, so you can always stay in sync with the latest.
Every time a new version is uploaded to Drawboard Projects, it's added to your version history. Instead of opening multiple files or digging through folders, you can:
No more guessing which file is the latest or digging through email chains to find updates. Version control is built in, so your reviews stay fast and focused.
For times when you need a side-by-side comparison, the overlay feature takes it further by letting you superimpose one version over another. It’s particularly helpful for checking contractor submissions against design intent or ensuring approved changes make their way into the latest version.
After you click the overlay button next to the revision history, you can:
It’s a powerful way to save time and improve accuracy across iterative reviews.
For complex projects, quick comments and simple markup aren't always enough. When something needs to be tracked, assigned, or escalated, the Issues tool steps in to provide the structure your review process needs.
Drawboard Projects enhances the review process with a dedicated issue tracking system that connects directly to your drawings, turning markups into tasks with the Issues tool.
With Issues, you can :
Everything stays connected to the drawing, meaning all the information needed to act is in one place.
After an issue is created, Drawboard helps you keep track of what’s open, what’s been addressed, and what needs follow-up. That way, you can track them through to resolution.
Take a structured approach to reviews and prevent miscommunication by:
By combining seamless markup tools with a formal issue tracking system, you can balance fast feedback with thorough review and accountability, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
Finishing a document review properly is just as important as the markup process itself. Clear review status and formal approval indicators help teams move forward confidently without second-guessing whether feedback was addressed.
Use Drawboard’s status system to clearly show which drawings have been reviewed:
No more confusion about whether a document is done or still in progress.
For more formal sign-offs or documentation:
Approvals stay connected to your documents, creating a clear audit trail and eliminating ambiguity.
Effective markup is more than tools. It's about teamwork. With Drawboard Projects, you can communicate directly within your drawings so everyone stays on the same page—literally.
Instead of chasing context in emails or external chats, bring your feedback directly to the file:
No more digging through emails to track feedback. Everything lives on the drawing.
Sometimes feedback needs to change hands. With reassignment tools, it’s simple to:
It’s the fastest way to keep momentum up without confusion or delay.
Drawboard Projects is a robust tool that’s built to scale with your workflow. And while it’s easy to use, it can be intimidating to jump into a new PDF markup tool and trust it with your valuable documents and pages.
The best way to start is to simply use the app. You don’t need to learn everything at once—start simple by exploring the markup tools, adding a few layers, or applying revision overlay. The more you use the platform, the more powerful and seamless it becomes.
Feedback loops shrink. Review cycles move faster. Everyone stays aligned and nothing gets missed.
Soon, you’ll wonder how you ever worked without it.
With everything in one place — and in real time — Drawboard Projects helps you deliver faster, with fewer mistakes, and better collaboration from day one.
Ready to work smarter, not harder?
Drawboard Projects helps teams review, mark up, and approve drawings more efficiently. Instead of juggling emails and conflicting file versions or handing over paper documents, you can collaborate in real time on one shared workspace. You’ll save time, money, and stress—and your clients will thank you.
This guide will walk you through the essential tools and workflows you need to annotate effectively and keep your markup workflows organized, clear, and fast.
Drawboard Projects turns any drawing or document into a shared, real-time workspace. When you open a file, you’re not just looking at a static PDF — you’re stepping into a collaborative environment where every comment, annotation, or markup is immediately visible to the whole team.
There are no conflicting versions floating around, no wondering if someone saw your feedback, and no tedious email chains trying to align reviewers. Hover over any annotation to see exactly who made it and when, and watch live updates unfold in real time as your team works. It’s like being in the same room, even when you're miles apart.
Providing clear feedback is the foundation of every effective review process. Drawboard Projects makes this effortless with intuitive markup tools designed to feel natural and powerful—no matter where or how you use it.
Whether you're sketching ideas, highlighting details, or flagging problems, Drawboard equips you with an adaptable suite of tools to match how you work—starting with the Favorites Bar.
Think of the Favorites Bar as your personal toolkit. Customize it with the pens, shapes, and colors you reach for most often so they’re always within easy reach. That way, you can spend more time marking and less time looking.
The Markup Toolbar holds the rest of the tools you don’t have in your Favorites Bar. It gives you easy access to everything from text and shapes to arrows and callouts, without sifting through multiple menus to find what you want.
Have a stylus for your touchscreen markup device? Our pressure-sensitive stylus support gives you tactile feedback and fine-grain control, simulating the feel of pen on paper and making technical annotations easier to add.
With these markup tools, you can communicate better with your team, not just make notes.
Chances are a lot of your workflows will involve the same tools, workflows, and annotations. Instead of manually writing or creating them every time, Drawboard lets you save them to an easily accessible Markup Library.
You can even choose who can access them with two distinct libraries:
By saving and reusing consistent visuals and language, you reduce review time and avoid repetitive work. And because libraries sync across devices, your desktop-created stamp is ready to go on your tablet when you're out on-site.
As reviews become more complex, you need a clear system for organizing feedback across your entire team. That’s where layers and filters come in. Together, they give you full control over what information you see and when.
Layers function like transparent overlays. They let you separate different types of input or feedback streams to reduce clutter and focus only on what you need.
To get started with layers, simply click the layers button in the toolbar. From there, you'll see all the available layers in the document.
Drawboard Projects offers several types of layers to help organize your work:
These layers give you the flexibility to structure your review the way that works best for your team. For example, many teams use an "Approved" layer that lets project managers quickly identify which markups have been finalized and need to be implemented in the next revision.
Sometimes a document gets busy. Between overlapping feedback, cross-team collaboration, and tight deadlines, it can be hard to know what to focus on. That’s where filtering comes in. It lets you quickly declutter your view so you can concentrate on just the input that matters right now.
These filters help streamline reviews and support more confident decision-making by giving you control over the noise.
When drawings change quickly and often, it can be easy to miss updates or overlook feedback. Drawboard Projects helps you manage revisions intuitively, so you can always stay in sync with the latest.
Every time a new version is uploaded to Drawboard Projects, it's added to your version history. Instead of opening multiple files or digging through folders, you can:
No more guessing which file is the latest or digging through email chains to find updates. Version control is built in, so your reviews stay fast and focused.
For times when you need a side-by-side comparison, the overlay feature takes it further by letting you superimpose one version over another. It’s particularly helpful for checking contractor submissions against design intent or ensuring approved changes make their way into the latest version.
After you click the overlay button next to the revision history, you can:
It’s a powerful way to save time and improve accuracy across iterative reviews.
For complex projects, quick comments and simple markup aren't always enough. When something needs to be tracked, assigned, or escalated, the Issues tool steps in to provide the structure your review process needs.
Drawboard Projects enhances the review process with a dedicated issue tracking system that connects directly to your drawings, turning markups into tasks with the Issues tool.
With Issues, you can :
Everything stays connected to the drawing, meaning all the information needed to act is in one place.
After an issue is created, Drawboard helps you keep track of what’s open, what’s been addressed, and what needs follow-up. That way, you can track them through to resolution.
Take a structured approach to reviews and prevent miscommunication by:
By combining seamless markup tools with a formal issue tracking system, you can balance fast feedback with thorough review and accountability, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.
Finishing a document review properly is just as important as the markup process itself. Clear review status and formal approval indicators help teams move forward confidently without second-guessing whether feedback was addressed.
Use Drawboard’s status system to clearly show which drawings have been reviewed:
No more confusion about whether a document is done or still in progress.
For more formal sign-offs or documentation:
Approvals stay connected to your documents, creating a clear audit trail and eliminating ambiguity.
Effective markup is more than tools. It's about teamwork. With Drawboard Projects, you can communicate directly within your drawings so everyone stays on the same page—literally.
Instead of chasing context in emails or external chats, bring your feedback directly to the file:
No more digging through emails to track feedback. Everything lives on the drawing.
Sometimes feedback needs to change hands. With reassignment tools, it’s simple to:
It’s the fastest way to keep momentum up without confusion or delay.
Drawboard Projects is a robust tool that’s built to scale with your workflow. And while it’s easy to use, it can be intimidating to jump into a new PDF markup tool and trust it with your valuable documents and pages.
The best way to start is to simply use the app. You don’t need to learn everything at once—start simple by exploring the markup tools, adding a few layers, or applying revision overlay. The more you use the platform, the more powerful and seamless it becomes.
Feedback loops shrink. Review cycles move faster. Everyone stays aligned and nothing gets missed.
Soon, you’ll wonder how you ever worked without it.
With everything in one place — and in real time — Drawboard Projects helps you deliver faster, with fewer mistakes, and better collaboration from day one.
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
We are a PDF and collaboration company. We believe that creating more effective connections between people reduces waste.
Our best work has been overtaken by busywork. That’s why we’ve created ways to help people get back to working wonders without any paper in sight.
Drawboard PDF lets you mark up and share with ease, and Drawboard Projects brings collaborative design review to architecture and engineering teams.
At Drawboard, we work our magic so our customers can get back to working theirs.
