Forum Discussion
MicrosoftMicrosoft Edge extends tools for the PDF reader
The integrated PDF reader in the legacy Microsoft Edge browser is deeply loved by many of you and we have been getting feedback about the availability of those features in the new version of Microsoft Edge. We are working on adding your favorite annotations tools to the PDF reader in Microsoft Edge right now and wanted to provide you an update on our work.
Inking on PDF files
Today you can use built-in inking tools when you open PDF files in the new Microsoft Edge. This allows you to take notes, fill out and sign PDF forms. Click on the Draw button from the toolbar to start writing; you can use a digital pen, touch or a mouse. You can use the Erase button to start erasing the strokes. If you are using a digital pen with a back-button, you can use that to erase while in draw mode.
We have also added the ability to change the color and width of the lines you are drawing. To open the new customization panel, just click or tap the "“ button attached to the Draw tool. This new color and stroke width selector are already available in the Canary and Dev channels and will make their way to the Stable channel in Microsoft Edge version 83.
highlighter selection panel
Text highlight support
Highlighting important text while reading PDFs is a very common activity especially for students reading books or research papers in PDF format. We have added the ability to highlight text in PDF files. You can access this feature today in the Canary, Dev and Beta channels via the context menu. Just select any piece of text on a PDF document that you want to highlight, right click to invoke the context menu and you will find the option to highlight the text. You can even choose from four different colors for the highlighters.
highlighter in context menu
We will continue to improve the highlighting experience in PDF by making it accessible directly from the PDF toolbar. Click or tap Highlight in the toolbar to get started. Then use your digital pen or mouse over the text you want to highlight. You can also change the color of the highlight by clicking the "“ button attached to the Highlight tool. This will open a color panel where you can select the color of your choice. The highlight tool is available in the PDF toolbar in Canary and Dev channels. You can expect to see it roll out to more channels in upcoming releases.
multi color highlights
What’s next
We know that many of you love the PDF reader in Microsoft Edge and we’ve heard a lot of feedback and requests for annotations support. We will be working on improving the ability to do light editing on PDF files which would make you productive right within the browser. As part of this effort, the team will be working on these scenarios:
- Improving the experience of reading text notes already present in a PDF.
- Ability to add text notes on a PDF.
Let us know in what scenarios you use annotations on PDFs and what kind of toolset you would want to see in Microsoft Edge PDF reader. This would help us expand the range of tools we have for PDFs with what is most important for you.
Elliot Kirk It's great to see more flexibility for inking experiences in Edge! Going forward I would really would like to see chapter/bookmark navigation. For long documents it makes a huge difference - I'm currently having to switch back to legacy edge for reading some ebooks that I use for research work.
Adding shapes (arrows, circles, rectangles) for PDF mark -up would be extremely beneficial to my current workflow. We need to mark-up the designs and plans of others and send out to our field team daily. Enabling this functionality as implemented in Mac Preview would allow for a full transition back to Windows.
So far read aloud is working great! I've had no problems at all reading anything from schematics, installation guides and so on. Love that you can stop and start wherever you want... Great Job Team!
Dennis5mile
PDF reader tools are is still very frustrating to use compared to the legacy Microsoft Edge. The current Edge does not promote enough productivity. PDF readers from external parties (e.g. Drawboard PDF) are much better for pdf annotation.
The main problems are:
- There is no shortcut for reverse your last annotation (e.g. Ctrl-Z). This is very frustrating, every time you make a small mistake while marking/drawing/underlining you have to select the eraser and erase it manually. An alternative is erasing the marking when double mark, just like MS Word. This small thing could make a huge difference in productivity.
--> ADD REVERSE SHORTCUT
- The current Edge PDF-tools do not support for annotation by pen only. This means that the pen function is worthless, because you will mess up the whole document by accidentally touching the screen with your remaining fingers, hand, and everything that touches your screen while using the pen.
--> ADD "ANNOTATE BY PEN ONLY"
--> ADD SUPPORT FOR "PRESSURE SENSITIVITY"
- Edge stable version 83 looks good :3
- HotCakeX
Looks good means please explain ...
HossainShahriar wrote:
HotCakeX
Looks good means please explain ...just look at the original post
I'm very excited for text boxes and notes. I have a Dell XPS laptop from 2017, so while I have a touch screen, it isn't good enough for precision styluses and it can't fold all the way around the screen. The keyboard is my most precise input method... Most PDF readers are workable when studying, but are not up to the challenge of taking notes in a lecture. A 2-in-1 laptop has already solved this problem, but perhaps more forgiving software would also allow me to reach that goal. For example:
Some kind of "smart text box" (where the text automatically resizes based on the size of the text box) would make taking notes during class a lot easier. The ability to select a bunch of ink in order to move or resize it would also be useful.
A smart "select" or "edit" tool, which would be able to do both of the above, might be very useful.
Elliot Kirk For the last couple of Canary versions (I've just updated to 84.0.495.0 ) I have a problem with PDFs. I can open and write on them fine, but if I highlight something and then click on or select the highlighted text to either change or remove the highlighting, the browser crashes every time.
In terms of my 'wish list', I refer to Xodo which I have used for several years as my go-to PDF editor. For me it is the complete PDF toolset for working with PDFs (and it's free). In my opinion, if all of the tools offered by Xodo could be available in Edge, then I would be more than happy to keep my workflow in Edge rather than have to open the separate app/webpage of Xodo. Thoughts?
Thanks!
With regard to editing of PDF documents, the inking is not smooth. The inking corrects to ones with sharp, ugly borders rather that picking up the input as it is and therefore make the input extremely unappealing & distorted with numerous pixels. The numerical value of thickness of the pen, which was available on Edge Classic is definitely missed since it helped maintain the consistency of the thickness of the written text.
Scrolling the pages of the document results in scribbles on it due to the touch-input which make it very cumbersome to use Edge as a tool to view & edit documents with ease.
Also, post-update, the previous edits & additions to the text in writing have changed.
And attempting to save the file results in creation of a new file which is definitely a turn off.
Kindly look into this. The classic Edge featured were more favorable and easy to use for the editing of a file with a wide array of easy-to-maneuver options without any interference & with greater smoothness.
Is there a way to change Edge Chromium back to Edge?
...Because Edge was very good for writing in a pdf-file with my Surface book pen. But now, while writing, the drawen text is blurred for a second and then gets sharp. Totally annoying. In addition, you can no longer scroll with your hands, while the drawing mode is activated. Why would I want to draw with my fingers instead of scrolling, while I am using a pen?
Hope there will be a solution soon. All students I know have the same trouble and are now searching for solutions outside of Microsoft.
Best regards
Konstantin Albert
- Thanks!
The problem was that my Windows did not allow me to uninstall the new Edge. But with third party programms it worked. Now I have the "old" perfect Edge back.
Maybe the Chromium will improve so that we can upgrade without any fear 🙂
Best regards
Konstantin
Is it possible to store the ink color and thickness as a setting in Edge or by Group Policy?
For every new PDF document I want to sign, the settings are reverted to blue and the pre-defined thickness.
It would be better to have the possiblitly to save my own settings (color/thickness).
Greetings
Patrick
PBA681215 wrote:Is it possible to store the ink color and thickness as a setting in Edge or by Group Policy?
For every new PDF document I want to sign, the settings are reverted to blue and the pre-defined thickness.
It would be better to have the possiblitly to save my own settings (color/thickness).
Greetings
Patrick
That's a great suggestion, I'm going to send it as feedback using feedback button on Edge because I find it useful too, please you also do the same. that's the primary method Edge Devs receive and register user feedback and more people asking for a feature = higher priority to implement it.
