Forum Discussion
Microsoft 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.
80 Replies
- Its mentioned "The highlight tool is available in the PDF toolbar in Canary and Dev channels." but I don't see any such tool in the PDF toolbar in my Canary version not even a flag to do so.
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
Elliot Kirk Love the new feature of Drawing on PDF file. However, I really need the Tables of Content for PDF and now it disappears on the new version.
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!
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.
I really miss the old MS PDF reader. As a student who has a lot of PDFs to go through, I enjoyed the accessibility and ease by which I could highlight and annotate. If I needed to write using my Surface Pen on the PDF, it was a quick and easy process. This update pretty made all those things less convenient. The highlighting tool is now in the context menu (3 step process) whereas the previous version, I could just hover over the highlighted text and click to highlight/add notes. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring this back. Additionally, the drawing tool is not as crisp/clean. The only color I can use is blue. I had more options in the older version. I loved Microsoft Edge because of its unique PDF reader and heavily relied on it too, but I am disheartened with the update and find myself regretting updating my browser at all. Do you know when the next update will be released that includes a better MS PDF reader? Elliot Kirk
- I have observed that for many PDF files bookmark sidebar is not shown.
- Also, it would be lovely if highlighting options came without right click. Like just when I select certain text, a highlight mini tool bar should come near that text(without right click). It would make my student life much more productive and enjoyable.
Thanks 😊
I really need support for Office 365 Message Encryption for encrypted PDF files in Edge.
Sending an encrypted PDF using Outlook is great, but reading it is not straightforward. Edge should do that.
In a perfect word, the recipient would sign (annotate) the document on screen, and send it back encrypted using OME.
vygadekaMicrosoft
Geoffrey McNaughton it would be great to understand this requirement in a bit more detail. We already support opening of PDF files protected using Microsoft Information Protection in the new version of the browser. Is that what you are referring to? If yes, this is already supported. Can you please give it a try?
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.
- 2 page layout or at least option for continuous vs not scrolling. Trying to swipe down to next page in piano sheet music makes page turns in paper books more appealing. In old Edge it was a dream.
