What Types of Annotations Can You Add?
PDF annotations fall into a few categories: text notes (typed comments placed anywhere on the page), freehand drawings (pen strokes in any colour), and highlights (semi-transparent coloured rectangles over text). Our browser-based Annotate tool supports all three without installing any software.
Adding Text Annotations
Text annotations are the most versatile type — you can place a typed comment anywhere on a page. They're ideal for marking up contracts, review drafts, study materials, or anything where you want to leave a specific note attached to a location on the page.
- Open the Annotate tool and load your PDF
- Select the Text tool from the toolbar
- Click anywhere on the page to place a text box
- Type your annotation — adjust font size and colour as needed
- Click Save to download the PDF with all annotations embedded
Highlighting a PDF
Highlights are coloured transparent rectangles drawn over text. Use them to mark important passages, indicate sections to review, or colour-code different topics. Different colours work well for different categories — for example, yellow for key facts, green for action items, red for issues.
Freehand Drawing
The draw tool lets you sketch freely on any page — useful for circling items, drawing arrows to point to something, or adding hand-drawn diagrams. On touch screens and tablets it works especially well with a stylus. Adjust the stroke width and colour before drawing.
Are Annotations Permanent?
Annotations added with our tool are baked into the PDF when you download it — they become permanent page content. This is ideal for sharing: the recipient sees the annotations in any PDF viewer with no special software. If you want reversible annotations, work on a copy and keep the original clean.
Annotating vs. Commenting (Sticky Notes)
Traditional 'sticky note' comments in Acrobat are separate metadata objects — recipients can delete them or hide them. Embedded annotations (text, drawings) are content — they can't be hidden without editing the PDF. For collaborative review workflows, sticky notes are better. For sharing a marked-up final document, embedded annotations are more reliable.