How to Add Comments to PDF
2023-08-30 19:55:58 • Filed to: PDF Text • Proven solutions
PDF is the most utilized file format. You can display images, tables, graphs, and much more. Comments and notes can help you point out something significant in your document. They come in handy when you want to make sure the person reading the document doesn’t miss out on important info. How to add comments to PDF? Standard PDF viewers do not allow you to add comments. You need professional PDF software. Today, we will talk about Wondershare PDFelement - PDF Editor, a feature-rich software you can use to add comments to PDF.
Part 1. How to Add Comments in PDF on Windows
Using PDFelement, you can add comments to PDF in Windows or Mac. The guide for how to add comments in a PDF file is a bit different, depending on the operating system. Comments can be opinions, illustrations, statements, or anything that expresses personal reactions. Using PDFelement you can make comments on PDF, edit them, or delete them. Here is a guide for Windows:
Step 1. Open a PDF
Open PDFelement and on the home screen, click on "+" button. Load the PDF document

Step 2. Make Comments on PDF
From the toolbar, go to the "Comment" section. There are different options you can choose, including text boxes, line or text, cloud boxes, rectangle boxes, and more. Choose the comment option you like, and add it to the document.

Step 3. Change Comments Properties
Once you add the comment, you can right-click on it. Go to "Properties" to change the various settings of the comment. You can change the style, thickness, color, opacity, font, and much more.

Optional: Customize Text in Comments
You can also customize the text in comments by changing font styles, color, font size, alignment, etc., or making text bold, italic, and underlined. To do that, simply select the text and make changes in the pop-up window or in the Properties sidebar.

Step 4. Save PDF with Comments
When you finish with the comments, click "File" > "Save", to save the changes to the PDF document. The Windows version of PDFelement also supports continuously adding comments or copy and pasting comments. To add comments, go to "Comment" and click the "Note" button and then click the places where you want to add the boxes. For copy and paste, select the comment, press Ctrl + C to copy, and then Ctrl + V to paste the comment

Advanced Tip to Lock Comments in PDF
1. Why Do You Need to Lock PDF Comments?
Locking a comment across a PDF document is equivalent to keeping it at the place it has been placed. Users cannot move the comments after they have been locked across the PDF. Often mentioned as pinning the comment, there are several benefits of carrying out this process as a whole. Having your comments locked across the PDF saves you from the botheration of moving them by accident.
Regardless of having the comment selected, the user cannot move them by accident if they have it locked. In other cases, important annotations can be saved from getting deleted. While saving the user from accidentally changing its location, this feature also saves users from deleting annotations by accident. To delete anything across the platform, it is important to have the comments unlocked.
Another hidden benefit of this feature is to perform bulk actions without affecting the locked comments, in particular. If you consider deleting some unnecessary annotations across the document, you can simply lock the important ones and select all of the annotations to delete the former ones. Even though the locked comments are selected, they are not deleted.
2. How to Lock and Unlock Comments across PDF
Access the "Comment" section from the left-hand panel of the window. Then right-click on any of the comments to open the "Properties" of the specific annotation. Now you will find the "Lock" button in the Properties panel. Tap on it to lock the comment.

Why Choose PDFelement to add Comments on PDF
The two most common ways to describe PDFelement are full-featured Acrobat alternative, and professional PDF editor at an affordable price. Both are true for this robust software. PDFelement is one of the best professional PDF editors. The software combines essential business features and a simple and easy-to-use interface.
In addition to adding comments, you can use PDFelement to edit documents, add pages, convert the PDF to other formats, and more. Comments are not the only annotation tools you can add. PDFelement allows you to add sticky notes as well. They are those small yellow boxes that open up when you click them.
The company behind the software continues to improve the user interface. The goal is to improve usability while keeping the features. Now, the home screen can help you go to any section you like. You can jump-start the process of creating, converting, editing, or any other task for your PDF file.
PDFelement features a familiar ribbon-style design. The design and flexibility are two strong sides of PDFelement. The software allows you to edit documents in a variety of ways. You can manipulate images, insert links, add header and footer, add comments, edit the text inline, edit the text within a text box, add watermarks, change the background of the document, and much more.
And the best part is you get all the features for a much more affordable price. Compared to competitors, PDFelement is cheaper than Adobe Acrobat and Foxit Phantom PDF. Here is a quick list of all the features of PDFelement.
Key features of PDFelement:
- Open and read PDF documents.
- Edit text in documents, either using line or paragraph mode.
- Remove, move, resize, and rotate images and graphical elements within the PDF document.
- Optimize PDF to reduce the size.
- Add comments, sticky notes, markup, highlights, and similar annotations.
- Convert PDF files to a variety of formats, including Office formats, TXT, HTML, RTF, Epub, and more.
- Create interactive form fields with a single click.
- Automatically recognize and fill form fields.
- Insert page numbers, bates numbers, or page elements.
- Turn any scanned document into a fully searchable and editable text document with OCR.
- Batch process to convert or data extract.
- Extract data and export in CSV format.
- Protect documents with a password.
- Place signature in PDF documents.
Part 2. How to Add Comments to PDF on Mac
Here are the steps for Mac users to add comments to PDF:
Step 1. Load PDF
Open a PDF file within PDFelement for Mac. You can click the below button to try it for free.

Step 2. Make Comments on PDF
Click on the “Markup” button, located on the left side column. This will open more options on the toolbar. Choose your desired tool and location where you want to insert a comment in PDF. Options include Text comment, sticky note, text box, or text callout.

Step 3. Change Comments Properties
Same as in Windows, you can change the properties of the comment. Right-click the comment and click the first icon on the top to adjust the color 5. If you are not satisfied with your comment, you can easily delete it. Double-click on any comment to select the comment. Simply press the Delete key to delete the comment you do not like.

Part 3. How to Add Comments in PDF with PDF Reader for Free
Offline solutions can vary at different levels according to the features they provide to their users. Wondershare PDF Reader is a free offline solution that can come in handy for users looking for small PDF edits. In contrast, Wondershare PDFelement features an exclusive amount of functions that can make significant changes across PDF documents. It includes adding text and images across the platform.
PDF Reader does not feature OCR technology and fillable PDF forms across its interface. However, users who are looking for guides on how to add comments in PDF can surely utilize PDF Reader for such simple tasks. Follow the following steps to add comments across PDF documents with ease.
Step 1: Open Wondershare PDF Reader on your desktop device after successfully installing it. Tap on “Open Files” and import the appropriate document.

Step 2: After importing the document, you can find the “Note” icon across the “Comment” section. Tap on the icon and click anywhere across the imported document to add the comment.

Step 3: You can also make changes across added comments across the left-handed panel that opens up by clicking the “Comment” icon. On opening the panel, tap on any comment to edit it. You can also delete unnecessary comments across the panel. Save the document once you are done.

Part 4. How to Add Comments to PDF Online
Online PDF editing solutions sound much better for users looking for solutions that take no certain time. Wondershare Document Cloud can be your perfect choice in online platforms if you want to make impressive edits across PDF documents.
The platform is known for offering unique and explicit tools across its interface. If you wish to check any PDF document, you can utilize the tool's Collaborative Annotations and Comments feature, which helps you make all kinds of comments across the document. If you wish to add comments to PDF, you need to look into the following steps in detail
Step 1: Access the official website of Document Cloud and tap on "Access Cloud" to proceed into the platform. You may need to sign into the platform before making changes to your documents. Tap on "Upload Files" to import the PDF document that requires comment.

Step 2: After importing the document, you can tap on the “Add Comment” section on the right side of the interface. Select the “Add Sticky Note” icon on the top-most menu to add a comment.

Then you can select the “Add Sticky Note” icon on the top-most menu to add a comment.

Step 3: A comment is added to the PDF on tapping anywhere across the document. After adding the comment, you can add text present on the right-hand panel. Following this, you can also change the color of the comment. Tap "Post" to conclude adding. Once you are done with the document, click on "Download" to save the document on the device.

Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Free Download or Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
Buy PDFelement right now!
Elise Williams
chief Editor