Annotate PDF documents

Prerequisite:

  • A licensed version of Advanced PDF (either the Annotation and Redaction license or the Advanced Editing license) must be available to your organization.
  • The Annotations feature must be enabled in WorkZone Configurator (Global > Feature settings > Client > Advanced PDF > Annotations).

You can annotate PDF documents, adding your comments, highlighting or emphasizing sections of text, adding shapes and lines, and generally inserting feedback and suggestions to the document.

You can perform the following actions:

  • Strikeout selected text.
  • Underline selected text.
  • Highlight selected text.
  • Add, edit and manage comments to the document.
  • Add blocks of free text to the document.
  • Draw rectangles in the document text.
  • Draw freehand diagrams to the document.
  • Add shapes to the text for example rectangles, circles, clouds , lines, polylines and arrows.
  • Add URLs or direct links to pages in the document.
  • Add signatures, stamps, images, file attachments and callouts to the document.
  • Select colors for all annotation options.
  • Erase annotations, shapes and text formatting.

Document review and multiple annotations

You can send the document to other users who can continue annotating the document and can review, edit or remove your annotations. A PDF document can contain multiple annotations and multiple users can annotate the same document, but not at the same time. When a PDF document is edited, it will be locked in WorkZone Explorer to prevent users simultaneously editing the same document. The document lock will be reset after 15 minutes of document inactivity.

You can see all current annotations in the Comments pane.

Annotate a PDF document

  1. Open the preview of a PDF document you want to annotate.
  1. Click Annotate to display the annotate toolbar.
  2. Select the annotation option (highlight, strikeout, underline, free text, etc) and the color you want to apply.
  3. Select text in the document to apply the annotation.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.
  1. In the PDF preview toolbar, click Select (Esc) and select a section of text or an annotation in the document.
  2. In the text tool menu, select Link and click URL to enter an internet URL or Page to enter a page reference
  3. Click Link to create the link.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.
  1. In the PDF preview toolbar, click Shapes to display the shapes toolbar.
  2. Select the shape and shape color you want to apply to the document.
  3. Click and drag in the document to add the selected shape to the document.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.
  1. In the PDF preview toolbar, click Insert to display the Insert toolbar.
  2. Click Callout and place the callout anchor in the document. You can select the color of the callout (red, black, blue or green) in the field to the right of the Callout button.
  3. In the text box, enter the text of the callout. The text will be the same color as the callout box and arrow.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.
  1. In the PDF preview toolbar, click Insert to display the Insert toolbar.
  2. Click Signature > Add New Signature to open the signature form.
    • Select Draw to draw or write your signature in freehand
    • Select Type to use the keyboard to enter your signature
    • Select Upload to upload an image of your signature
    • Click Create to create the signature.
  3. Place the signature in the document page with your mouse.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.
  1. In the PDF preview toolbar, click Insert to display the Insert toolbar.
  2. Click Rubber Stamp and in the Approved field, (the field has no name but displays the previously selected stamp), select the stamp you want to use. 
    • Click Standard to select stamps that are part of the original installation.
    • Click Custom to select stamps you have created.

      You can create your own stamp by clicking Create New Stamp and then defining the components of the stamp.
  3. Place the selected stamp in the page with your mouse.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.
  1. Click Stamp and click on the page to open a file explorer.
  2. In the file explorer, select the image you want to add to the page and click Open.
  3. The image will be placed on top of the page, covering the background content. You can re-size the image and drag it to a better location, if needed.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.
  1. Click File Attachment and click on the page to open a file explorer.
  2. In the file explorer, select the file you want to add to the page, and click Open.
  3. The attached file will be indicated by a paper clip. Readers can click the paper clip to download the file.
  4. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.

Remove annotations

You can remove annotations from a document in several ways:

  • In the PDF preview toolbar, click Comments.
  • In the Comments pane, select the needed annotation, click comment menu and select Delete.
    -Or-
  • Click Select (Esc) to enable the selection tool, manually select annotation in the document with the hand cursor () and then select Delete in the text tool menu.
  • Click Cancel to cancel all your changes and close the pane.
  1. In the PDF preview toolbar, click Eraser to change your mouse cursor to a crosshair cursor.
  2. Drag the crosshair cursor over the annotation you want to remove. All types of annotations and redactions (searched for or manually set) can be removed this way.
  3. Click Save to save your changes or click Cancel to cancel all changes and close the pane.

Manage comments

You can vied and edit existing comments and annotations for the document in the Comments pane.

  • Click Comments in the PDF preview toolbar to open the Comments pane.

Here you can search for text in the existing comments, apply a filter to the list and sort the entire list of comments. You can add a reply to another user's comments, edit or delete comments and change the status of a comment.

Sort comments

You can sort comments in the list by:

  • The comment's position in the document.
  • The time of the last change of the comment.
  • The comment's status (Approved, Rejected, Canceled, Completed, None, Marked, Unmarked).
  • The comment's author.
  • The comment type.

See also:

Redact PDF documents