The Draw tab turns RixDocs into a marking-up surface. A pen, a highlighter and an eraser let you write and sketch directly on the page — ink lands on the InkOverlay layer above the document, so your text and layout underneath are never disturbed.
The three tools
| Tool | Behavior | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Pen | Solid ink strokes in a chosen color and width | Signatures, quick notes, sketching diagrams |
| Highlighter | Broad, translucent strokes | Flagging passages for review |
| Eraser | Removes ink strokes | Cleaning up or undoing markup |
Pick a tool, choose its color and width, and draw anywhere on the page. Ink follows stylus, touchscreen, graphics tablet, mouse or trackpad — pressure-sensitive hardware produces more natural strokes where available.
Ink is an overlay, not a content edit
This is the design decision that makes ink safe: annotations live on an overlay above the page. Consequences worth knowing:
- Writing on a paragraph does not edit the paragraph; the text below is byte-identical before and after.
- Erasing ink never damages content — there is no wrong stroke that costs you a sentence.
- Ink and the document body can be handled separately when sharing: markup for the review copy, clean pages for the final one.
That separation is why ink suits review rounds: scribble on a draft the way you would on a printout, and pair the visual marks with typed comments for anything that needs a written explanation.
Practical review patterns
- Highlight, then comment. Highlight the passage with the marker, then anchor a comment to the same text so the discussion is searchable later — ink is visual, comments are structured.
- Initial the pages. A pen signature-style mark per page is a fast human sign-off on printed-page reviews.
- Sketch the idea. An arrow and a rough box on top of a paragraph often explains a layout request faster than a paragraph of prose.
- Teach and mark. For homework, proofs and marked-up manuscripts, ink over the text styles and shapes gives you the full markup toolkit.
Keyboard-friendly flow
Toggle to the Draw tab, pick the pen, mark the page, then switch back — or turn the active tool off to resume typing. Tools stay selected until changed, so rapid highlight-then-comment passes need no tool-hunting between strokes.
Ink and sharing
When the marked-up document is shared as .docx, the ink travels with the file and reviewers using Word see the same annotations. For a fixed, read-only record of a marked-up review, export the page to PDF — ink renders into the output exactly as drawn.
What to explore next
- Comments and collaboration to pair visual marks with structured discussions.
- Track Changes for edits that, unlike ink, rewrite the text.
- Export, PDF and printing to share the marked-up result.