How to Add Comments in Adobe Acrobat

You open a PDF, need to flag something for a colleague, and suddenly you’re staring at a menu you’ve never touched before. Sound familiar?

Adding comments in Adobe Acrobat is one of those things that looks complicated until someone walks you through it once. After that, you’ll wonder how you ever reviewed documents without it.

This guide covers every commenting method in Acrobat — sticky notes, text highlights, drawing tools, stamps, and more — so you can collaborate on PDFs without the back-and-forth confusion.

Why PDF Comments Matter More Than You Think

Document collaboration has changed dramatically. According to Adobe, over 400 billion PDFs are opened each year, and a significant portion of those involve review cycles across teams, clients, and stakeholders.

Poor document feedback workflows cost real time. Research by McKinsey shows that employees spend an average of 1.8 hours per day searching for and gathering information, and unclear feedback loops are a major contributor. When your annotations are scattered across email threads, the problem compounds fast.

Acrobat’s commenting tools solve this by keeping all feedback inside the document — timestamped, attributed, and easy to track.

What You Need Before You Start

Before diving in, confirm a few things:

• Adobe Acrobat (Standard or Pro) — not just Adobe Reader, which has limited annotation features in some versions
• A PDF that isn’t locked or secured against editing
• Acrobat version 2017 or later for full commenting functionality (older versions may have limited tools)

If you’re working in Adobe Reader (the free version), you can still add sticky notes and basic highlights as long as the PDF owner has enabled commenting rights.

How to Open the Comment Tools in Adobe Acrobat

The fastest way to access all comment tools is through the right-side panel.

Open your PDF in Acrobat. In the toolbar at the top, click “Comment” — it’s usually in the right portion of the main toolbar. This opens the Comment panel on the right side of your screen, revealing the full annotation toolkit.

Alternatively, go to Tools > Comment from the top menu bar. Once Comment mode is active, a secondary toolbar appears at the top of your document with quick-access icons for the most common tools.

Adding a Sticky Note Comment

Sticky notes are the most common commenting method. They let you attach a typed message to any spot on the page without altering the document content.

To add a sticky note:

Click the sticky note icon (it looks like a small speech bubble) in the Comment toolbar. Your cursor will change to a crosshair. Click anywhere on the document where you want to drop the note. A yellow box will appear with a text field — type your comment inside it and press Escape or click outside the box to close it.

The sticky note will appear as a small icon on the page. Anyone who opens the PDF can click it to read your message.

To edit or delete a sticky note: Double-click the note icon to reopen it and edit the text. Right-click the note and select Delete to remove it entirely.

Highlighting Text and Adding Text Comments

Highlighting is ideal when you’re referencing specific wording in the document.

To highlight text:

Select the Highlight Text tool from the Comment toolbar (the icon looks like a marker). Click and drag across the text you want to highlight. A yellow highlight will appear. You can double-click the highlighted section to add a note explaining why you flagged it.

Changing highlight color: Right-click the highlight, choose Properties, and pick from the color options. Using different colors for different types of feedback — questions in yellow, approvals in green, issues in red — speeds up review significantly.

Other text markup tools in this group:

• Underline Text — draws a line beneath selected text
• Strikethrough Text — marks text as suggested for deletion
• Replace Text — marks text and lets you type a suggested replacement inline

These three tools are especially useful for editing documents where you want to suggest changes without altering the original content.

Using the Text Box Tool for Longer Annotations

Sticky notes collapse into icons. If you need a visible, always-visible annotation box directly on the document surface, use the Text Box tool instead.

In the Comment toolbar, click Text Box. Click and drag on the document to draw the text box. Type your annotation inside it. The text box stays visible at all times, unlike sticky notes.

This is useful for design feedback, form instructions, or adding context directly onto a page layout.

Drawing and Shape Annotation Tools

Sometimes you need to point to something visually rather than describe it in text. Acrobat’s drawing tools let you do exactly that.

In the Comment toolbar, look for the Drawing Tools group. You’ll find:

• Arrow — draw arrows pointing to specific elements
• Rectangle and Oval — draw shapes to frame or circle areas
• Pencil — freehand drawing directly on the document
• Line — draw a straight line between two points
• Polygon and Cloud — for irregular-shaped callouts

After drawing any shape, double-click it to add an associated text note. Right-click the shape to access color, opacity, and thickness options.

Freehand drawing with the pencil tool is particularly popular for marking up design files, diagrams, and technical schematics where precision pointing matters.

Adding Stamps to a PDF

Stamps are predefined visual markers you can drop onto any page. Think of them as the digital equivalent of a rubber stamp.

Click Stamp in the Comment toolbar. A dropdown will show categories including:

• Dynamic — stamps with auto-filled date, time, and your name (e.g., “Approved,” “Confidential,” “Draft”)
• Sign Here — signature request stamps
• Standard Business — common labels like “Void,” “For Public Release,” “Revised”

Click the stamp you want, then click anywhere on the page to place it. You can resize and move it like any other annotation.

You can also create custom stamps from images or text if you need company-specific approval marks.

Using the Eraser and Undo Tools

Made a messy pencil stroke? Acrobat has you covered.

The Eraser tool (visible when the Drawing Tools are active) lets you remove portions of freehand pencil marks. Click the Eraser, then drag across any part of a pencil annotation to erase it.

For any annotation type, pressing Ctrl+Z (Windows) or Cmd+Z (Mac) undoes your last action. This works for notes, highlights, shapes, and text boxes.

How to Reply to and Resolve Comments

Acrobat’s threaded commenting feature lets multiple reviewers respond to the same annotation — making it work more like a conversation thread than a static note.

To reply to a comment: Click any annotation to open the comment panel. At the bottom of the annotation card, click Reply. Type your response and press Enter.

To mark a comment as resolved: Click the checkmark icon at the top right of any comment card. The annotation will turn grey, indicating it has been addressed. This does not delete the comment — it stays visible for audit purposes.

Filtering by status: In the Comment panel on the right, use the filter options to view only Open, Replied, or Resolved comments. This is invaluable when managing review cycles on large documents with dozens of annotations.

Managing All Comments in the Comment Panel

Every annotation in your document appears in the Comment panel on the right side. This is your command center for review management.

Sorting comments: Click the sort icon to sort by page number, author, date, or type. When reviewing long documents, sorting by page keeps everything linear and easier to work through.

Searching comments: Use the search bar at the top of the panel to find specific keywords across all annotations. Useful when you’re looking for a specific reviewer’s note on a long document.

Exporting comments: Go to Comment > Export All to Data File to save all annotations as an FDF or XFDF file, which can be imported into another copy of the same document. This is particularly useful when collaborators don’t want to share the full PDF but still need to exchange feedback.

According to a study by PricewaterhouseCoopers, organizations that implement structured digital review workflows reduce document cycle time by up to 50%. Centralizing all feedback in Acrobat’s comment panel is a direct step toward that kind of efficiency.

How to Print a PDF With Comments

Sometimes you need a hard copy that shows all the annotations.

Go to File > Print. In the print dialog, look for the Comments and Forms dropdown. Change it from “Document” to “Document and Markups”. This prints the document with all visible annotations included.

For just a summary of comments without the document, select “Comment Summary” from the same dropdown. Acrobat will generate a clean list of all annotations, organized by page.

How to Delete All Comments at Once

Reviewing is done. Now you want a clean document. Here’s how to strip all annotations in one move.

Go to Edit > Find & Delete Comments in older versions, or use the comment filter and select all annotations in the Comment panel (Ctrl+A or Cmd+A while in the panel), then press Delete.

Alternatively, go to Tools > Redact > Sanitize Document — this removes all hidden data and annotations in one pass. Note that Sanitize is irreversible, so save a backup first.

Commenting in Adobe Acrobat on Mobile

Acrobat’s mobile app (iOS and Android) supports a subset of the desktop commenting tools.

On mobile, open your PDF in the Adobe Acrobat app. Tap the pencil icon (Edit & Annotate) at the bottom of the screen. You’ll see options for sticky notes, highlights, text boxes, and freehand drawing.

The mobile experience is streamlined for quick annotations on the go. Complex review workflows are still better handled on desktop, but mobile is excellent for approvals, quick questions, and light markup.

Adobe reports that mobile PDF usage has grown by 30% year-over-year, reflecting how document workflows are extending beyond the desktop.

Enabling Comments for Recipients Using Adobe Reader

If you’re sending a PDF to someone who only has the free Adobe Reader, you need to enable commenting rights before sending it.

In Acrobat, go to File > Save As Other > Reader Extended PDF > Enable Commenting & Measuring. Save the file. Recipients using Reader can now add sticky notes, highlights, and basic annotations.

Without this step, Reader users will see a locked-down view with no annotation access.

Conclusion

Adding comments in Adobe Acrobat is one of the most practical skills you can master for document-heavy workflows. Whether you’re reviewing contracts, collaborating on proposals, or flagging design updates, the right annotation tools save hours across every review cycle.

Start with sticky notes and highlights — they cover 80% of use cases. Layer in drawing tools, stamps, and text boxes as your review needs get more complex. And take advantage of the Comment panel’s threading and resolution features to keep review cycles clean and trackable.

The more deliberate your annotation workflow, the faster decisions get made. That applies to document reviews — and to every other workflow in your business.