PDF note-taking enhanced with support for text comments

[vygadeka]

Greetings Insiders,  

The ability to add text comments on PDF documents is one of the features we provided for the PDF reader in legacy Microsoft Edge. We have heard feedback that some of you miss this useful feature, so we are pleased to announce that we are bringing it back to Microsoft Edge! Here is how you can access this functionality in the latest version of Canary and Dev.  

To try it out, open any PDF file in Microsoft Edge. Select the piece of text you want to comment on and invoke the right click context menu. You will see the new Add comment option in the menu.  

Clicking that option will open a text box where you can add your comment. Then simply type the comment you want to leave on the document, then click the checkmark to save the comment. 

Once a note is added, the selected text will be highlighted, and a comment icon will appear to indicate the comment. You can hover over that icon to preview the comment or click on it to open and edit it.  

 

Alternatively, you can also add comment on a text highlight you had previously added in the document. Just right click on any existing text highlight to add a comment on it. You can add as many comments as you want on a PDF document. You can also delete the comments previously added using the Delete button present inside the note.  

Once you are done adding your comments on the document, you can save the document so that your comments are saved as part of the document. You can access the comments anytime later by opening the saved document in Microsoft Edge.  

Try out the text comment tool in latest Canary or Dev channel and let us know what you think! We would love to hear your feedback to make improvements in future. From within Microsoft Edge, you can go to “…” menu > Help and feedback > Send feedback, or simply use the shortcut (Shift+Alt+I) on a PC to open the feedback tool. 

  - The Microsoft Edge Product Team 

[#2]

@vygadeka I personally would love to see an icon on the taskbar of the PDF reader next to the Draw and Highlight that allows me to place a note. It is not intuitive to right click

[#3]

@vygadeka 

Thanks for the updates, it helps me record important notes inside the pdf file.

Is the double-tap auto dictionary feature coming soon to Microsoft Edge pdf file too? This feature boosts my productivity when reading since my second language is English. Then I don't need to open another tab for Google translate. We're looking forward to this feature which same as the Edge legacy.

[#4]

@cyrribraeYes, I think it would be useful to have an indicator in the TOC of which pages in the document have comments on them. Maybe just a standard comment icon (no colour necessary). It makes sense to me because the TOC would then give me a more informative overview of the document.

The ability for CTRL+F search within the document to also search within comments would be extremely useful too. 

[#5]

But the thing is not all PDFs have TOC..

[#6]

Happy to see that there is progress in terms of note taking in PDF. However, for users of the surface pen, the move to edge was a big disappointment. For quite some time normal use of writing and erasing function were not possible. Now they are back, but it seems as if the "Ink" / the writing looks much less smooth in Edge than in Note and other Microsoft products. It would be great if the team can bring back full functionality of the pen to PDFs in Edge, i.e.:

-make writing look better (as is done in other Microsoft products and was done in the old Edge)

- ensure that the button on the pen works to mark and comment! This seems only feasible via right click but not why the pen click function

Keep up the good work, I would be extremely grateful to have the old functionality of the Pen in MS Edge using PDFs back! 

[#7]

@vygadeka Thanks for the commenting ability, but obliterating the source text is not at all useful as occurs on text point sizes <=11 pt.  Add a leader to the comment and the ability to move the comment anywhere (like available white space) plus allow stretching the leader to land near the source text. 

[#8]

@vygadeka 
Maybe I'm being dumb, but why is there that blank space above the text with just the x? Is there a reason for that that I just don't know about

[#9]

@groupeboncoeur 

what is that exactly?

[#10]

@vygadeka 

I have mixed feelings...

Annotation in Edge works fine, and you can later open the saved PDF with Acrobat or PDF Expert.

But the integration with OneDrive is not ideal: if I choose "Open in browser" from OneDrive and add comments, I would aspect that my comments are saved automatically. Instead, I am asked to save the file again in a different location (the last one in which I downloaded something). This is a recipe for losing your comments because you will easily end up with two versions of the same file.

When I open a PDF file in the browser through OneDrive, I would expect the same behaviour that I get when I open a .docx file in Word online.

Right now, the default visualisation of pdf files in OneDrive is of little use. I would prefer that a double-click on the file in OneDrive just opens the file for reading/editing (if you are on Edge; just for reading on other browsers) and save it automatically if you highlight or comment.
This would make it possible to SHARE annotations on a PDF, which has been possible on Google Drive for about two years.

Of course, you can do shared annotation of PDF files with Hypothesis, which is great for a university course but an overkill for short texts and exercises. Shared annotations of PDF with OneDrive+Edge would look like shared editing in Word Online and give a consistent experience when both writing and reading.
Or maybe you could just give an option of opening PDF in Word online in "comment alone"-mode.

There are third-part solutions for shared PDF-annotation, but it would be far better to have shared annotation integrated in OneDrive as an environment for reading and writing. This would also help prepare geeks and researchers to eventually go over to an "universal" online annotator like Hypothesis.

[#11]

I´m having an incredible experience with PDF texts in my work and gratifuled for your discussions.

[#12]

Why does this not work in Microsoft Edge on my Macbook? There is also no Help & Feedback option either. @vygadeka 

[#13]

Please PLEASE add in the ability to include hand-written notes using the stylus. I truly miss the Windows 10 version where I could highlight and write directly on webpages as well as PDFs.

To me, it makes sense to add full PDF annotation capabilities. I started hand-written highlights and annotations 2006 using the Grahl Software product PDF Annotator when I purchased my first tablet PC running on XP. Given Microsoft 365 and the integration that seems to be happening, it seems that full note-taking capabilities as well as PDF manipulation and editing would have already been integrated into Microsoft 365 (to me it is odd that .pdf's are part of Edge rather than Microsoft 365.) There are ok extensions which continue to allow this functionality on the web - one even has an excellent socialization of the web-notes you make where you can follow folks who have similar interests as you do and be followed.
Right now, the sticky notes that are placed in the .pdf, from my perspective, should also integrate with the sticky note app and the note becomes available in the notes "folder" that can be found in Outlook. I further believe that stylus handwriting and sticky notes must become ubiquitous across the Microsoft ecosystem so I can put a sticky on a PowerPoint, webpage, or video, circle something that needs to be edited in a .jpeg and send a hand-written email to my sister who just had a baby.. I know I just jumped into areas outside the Edge prevue, but for now, please bring back web and pdf highlighting and notes. Did I say please and offer a cherry to go on top of the whipped cream?