How to Annotate PDF

What does it mean to annotate a PDF? Annotation means the behavior to mark a sentence or phrase for adding some extra comments, notes, or highlights to make the content to be much more understandable. In many Office tools such as Word and Excel, people can easily find ways to annotate the content. But what about in PDF?

We all know that PDF is a kind of file that can not be edited casually. To add an annotation to PDF, you must use the tools that support such a function. However, it isn't as complicated as we can imagine. So how to annotate a PDF easily? Don't worry! We are going to show you several ways in this passage.

Part 1. The Best 3 PDF Annotators to Help You Annotate PDFs Easily

To annotate PDF with the least effort, the best choice is to select a powerful and helpful PDF annotator to help. We discover three with a very good reputation. So in the next, these 3 best PDF annotators will be introduced to you one-by-one.

PDFelement (Desktop, Mobile)

PDFelement is a powerful PDF editor developed by Wondershare. Currently, it is available on Windows, Mac, and mobile. PDFelement brings the simplest ways for people to edit PDFs to be the ideal files they want to possess. Just like the Word program, PDFelement makes all PDF files can be easily edited. Therefore, by using this program, you will find that annotating PDFs is not a big deal anymore. In addition, to annotate PDFs or edit them, PDFelements also provides the tools to convert and protects the files easily. So for sure, PDFelement is one of the best PDF annotations for you.

Pricing

PDFelement Pro USD 79/year

PDFelement Standard USD 69/year

Pros:

• Covers many helpful features
• Offers a simple and intuitive interface
• Provides user-friendly and responsive services

Cons:

• Users are required to subscribe and register for using PDFelement after the free trial

Soda PDF (Web, Desktop)

Soda PDF provides both web and a desktop app for people to edit PDF files. To annotate PDF, edit PDF, or create, convert the files, etc., Soda PDF will help you complete the task in the simplest way. With both online and desktop versions, Soda PDF just makes the PDF files editing works to be more flexible. No matter for personal or business use, Soda PDF can both handle all the tasks well. Therefore, if you consider annotating a PDF, don't forget this great tool.

Pricing

Soda PDF HOME USD 48/year

Soda PDF PREMIUM USD 44.97/year

Pros:

• The tools provided in the app and online are all easy-to-use
• Provides with a professional interface
• Different functions are provided for free use

Cons:

• The interface of the tool is not intuitive enough, and this may be complicated for new users to grasp

Adobe Acrobat DC (Desktop)

Needless to say that Adobe Acrobat DC is always the most professional and advanced PDF editor as well as annotator that most people will first remind of. With lots of powerful functions, PDF editors can always find their needed tools in Adobe Acrobat DC to prompt their files to be better. A user-friendly feature for Adobe Acrobat DC is that it offers users full charge to handle the toolbars. If you don't want some unnecessary tools, you can hide them and just leave those helpful ones for yourself. Adobe Acrobat DC is a good choice to annotate PDF when you are in need.

Pricing

Acrobat Standard DC USD 12.99/month

Acrobat Pro DC USD 14.99/month

Pros:

• Offers lots of professional PDF tools for managing the files
• Provides a customizable toolbar to make the usage more convenient to each user
• Users can edit the PDF files in a more professional way

Cons:

• Only supports desktop, no online or mobile versions
• Complicated for first-time users to use
• The application may be too bulky for some computers to run

Part 2. The Simplest Way to Annotate PDF Online for Free

If you just need to annotate PDF simple, like adding a text or an image annotation next to the sentences or phrases, you can try a simple PDF annotator online platform, which is Online PDF Annotator. I will show you the tutorial on how to annotate a PDF online easily.

Step 1. Go to Online PDF Annotator official page in your browser. Then you can select to import your PDF file to the platform by going to the Upload Document sector on the interface.

Step 2. When the PDF file is uploaded, the page will turn to the edition interface. Where you can annotate the PDF content according to your own needs. For example, you can add comments by enabling the Comments option on, then hit Add comments, select a place to add, and edit the text you are going to add.

Step 3. After saving the added comments or text, just press the DONE button in the top right corner of the interface for saving the changes. When Online PDF Annotator allows you to select a way to do with the annotated PDF, choose one from the list accordingly.

Part 3. Annotate PDF on Mac with This Easy Guidance

For Mac users, an even much simpler method to annotate PDF Mac version is available. Actually, Mac users can directly annotate a PDF in Preview on Mac.

Step 1. Open your PDF file on Mac using Preview.

Step 2. In the toolbar of Preview, you can find the Tools option. Click it and then select Annotate.

Step 3. Now you can choose the way to annotate the PDF content, such as Highlight Text, Underline Text, or Strike Through. Then all is done!

Conclusion

Here we have provided both the professional and easy-to-use PDF annotators to help you easily annotate a PDF easily. What is your choice? Or do you have more options to annotate PDFs? Feel free to share with us!