PDF document editing

PDF documents can be annotated, redacted and edited using the Advanced PDF pane in the preview pane. The PDF Viewer pane, which is available and enabled for use by default, cannot be used to edit PDF documents.

Note: Advanced PDF editing is not supported by the Internet Explorer 11 browser.

Separate Advanced PDF licenses are required to annotate/redact and edit PDF documents. A free version of the Advanced PDF is however available and installed by default. The free version of Advanced PDF can only be used to read PDF documents and the default WorkZone PDF Viewer is still installed and enabled for all users.

Note: Licensed versions of Advanced PDF must be enabled in WorkZone Configurator.

The Advanced PDF license

The Advanced PDF license consists of three tiers. The first tier is installed by default and is free of charge. The second tier includes annotation and redaction features while the third tier contains annotation, redaction and advanced PDF editing features.

Both the Advanced PDF and PDF Viewer panes are opened from the preview pane. By default the preview pane contains and displays the PDF Version, but the preview pane must be configured to also display the Advanced PDF pane.

Advanced PDF features

Advanced PDF enables WorkZone users to do the following on a PDF document:

Add advanced annotations such as highlights, notes, callouts, comments, apply text formatting such as striking out, underlining or marking text, adding text boxes and free hand drawings.
Search for and mark terms for redaction.
Preview text marked for redaction before applying the redactions as well as sending the redaction-marked document for review before redaction is applied.
Rotate, move or delete pages.
Extract existing pages.
Add a watermark to the document.

Editing locks the document

When a PDF document is edited, it will be locked in WorkZone Explorer to prevent users simultaneously editing the same document. When you stop editing , the lock will be removed, enabling others to access the document. The document lock will be reset after 15 minutes of document inactivity.

Only PDF documents

You can only edit, annotate or redact PDF documents. Non-PDF documents can only be previewed.

Tip: When using the Advanced PDF editor to annotate, redact or edit PDF documents, you can enter full-screen mode by selecting Menu > Full screen.

The full screen mode of the Advanced PDF editor expands the editor to cover the entire screen, blocking out all other windows. By comparison, the full screen mode of the Preview pane only expands the current tab to full screen mode within WorkZone Client.

PDF documents that cannot be annotated, redacted or edited

PDF documents that are locked for editing, archived , deleted, attached to closed cases, have been re-journalized, or which the current user does not have editing rights to, cannot be annotated, redacted or edited using Advanced PDF. These documents can be read unless read access is also prevented.

Additionally, previous versions of PDF documents (for example PDF documents opened from the Versions detail tab on the Document detail page) cannot be annotated, redacted or edited using Advanced PDF.