THIS IS NECESSARY since we can accidentally select a colour for the fill and it cannot be removed.
All new rectangles will have it and this setting sometimes persists after restarting Adobe.

Hi all, very late to the party with this but there seems to be a work around (FINALLY) in 2023.

When editing the shape's properties AFTER you've drawn it, there are two check boxes at the bottom of the properties window which lets you lock the selection and make it the default setting.

Select the style you want with 'no fill' chosen, lock the choice and set as default and voila, you've got a repeating way of making shapes with no fill!

This exists its just in a dumb spot. That is why they declined it. Click the color selecting icon and click the settings sprocket icon. you should see the selected fill color box, click it for color selection. you should see an option for no color.

Why has this request for feature been declined? Why does this only show 3 votes where there are 25 comments saying this is very important and needs to be done? I cannot vote for this request! Why????

I think this is another example that Adobe just does not care at all about their customers. I'm glad I only have to use Adobe at work!!!!!

This is absolutely dumb and frustrating. I can't draw a circle around something ??????

Why would you not add the no fill option? I use shapes to highlight my comments all the time. I just wasted an hour figuring out how to make the circle shape transparent, and it's because Adobe didn't put the transparent/no fill option for shapes? Do you want people to buy and use your software?

Acrobat Pro DC disgrace. I need a contact to send a bill for wasting 3 hours of my time trying to draw a shape and do normal editing. I will now be searching for another PDF program.

Great post, Full of useful tips!, Thank you. http://finelineartacademy.com/

This may help: https://documentgeek.blogspot.com/2019/09/acrobat-dc-how-to-have-drawing-markup.html

Please add a no fill option for all shapes. The new version is incredibly frustrating!

Hi Barbara,

Following are the images explaining how we can fix this issue, that you had.
The steps are as follows
1) Select a shape from comments tool and apply on the area of your choice, adjusting height and size.
2) Right Click (On Windows OS) using mouse and select "Properties"
3) Make sure the "Fill Color" is selected to TRANSPARENT only and no other color is chosen.
4)Check the box for making this as default properties and click on OK
With this the inner content is seen visible.

Hope that helps.

Taking away the no fill option for shapes has made my life miserable! I have to mark up plans and specification sheets and now there is no easy way to put an empty box around the specification choice I want the contractor to use. Now I have to print out my plans and spec. sheets, mark them up by hand, then scan them back into the computer. TIME WASTER! I don't know whose "great idea" this was, but it is a terrible inconvenience for architects and designers. PUT iT BACK!

P.S. I tried the workaround suggested below. Didn't work for me.

Here's a hack that worked for me not 10 minutes ago in Acrobat Pro DC:

:: Open a document that has the Rectangle and/or Circle/Oval properties you want (example: 1 pt red border, no fill).
:: Right-click on the Rectangle, etc., whose properties you want to emulate, and select "Make Current Properties Default."

For me those properties carried over to all new Rectangles and Circles/Ovals that I created in both that document as well as other documents.

Hope that helps.

Please, please bring back the no fill options. And the deprecated toolbar (mentioned in an earlier work-around post) isn't working.
And while we're at it, why is it so hard to make more than a three-pointed shape in the various polygon tools?

It's honestly embarrassing that this is missing from the UI. The default redline solution is a red stroke with a null fill. Changing it once means you can't revert. Between this and the Fill/Sign not working for the past month I'm pretty disappointed in Acrobat Pro DC, especially given the price.

Please, please, please bring back the "no fill" option for the shape tool! I'm in the building industry and use this product for marking up plans

Please, please, please bring back the "no fill" option for the shape tool! I'm in the AEC industry and use this product for the integration with Adobe Indesign & Photoshop, but this is extremely irritating for use as my professional document mark-up software.

My co-workers keep asking me about Bluebeam which we may have to switch to since I"m googling this thread on how to change my shape properties every time someone in my office needs help with the fill feature.

OH MY GOSH. I can't believe how difficult it is to figure out how to add a shape to a pdf file with Acrobat Pro 2017. It was so easy in the old version. Please, Please help me.

please include 'no fil' as an option shape create (or edit) dialogs. I used 'empty' shapes far more than I used filled/colored shapes when doing markups of others' documents. I'd rather not use something other than Acrobat for my markups, but w/o "no fill", I'll have to.

It's inconceivable that there is no longer a No Fill option for shapes. Thankfully, I found an article that gave me a backdoor trick/tip to get the job done, but it blows my mind that Adobe has not recognized this oversite themselves. Command E on a Mac will bring up the old Properties pallet, which will allow you to select No Fill as a color option.

http://documentgeek.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-case-for-still-using-deprecated.html