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  1. Acrobat User Guide
  2. Introduction to Acrobat
    1. Access Acrobat from desktop, mobile, web
    2. What's new in Acrobat
    3. Keyboard shortcuts
    4. System Requirements
  3. Workspace
    1. Workspace basics
    2. Opening and viewing PDFs
      1. Opening PDFs
      2. Navigating PDF pages
      3. Viewing PDF preferences
      4. Adjusting PDF views
      5. Enable thumbnail preview of PDFs
      6. Display PDF in browser
    3. Working with online storage accounts
      1. Access files from Box
      2. Access files from Dropbox
      3. Access files from OneDrive
      4. Access files from SharePoint
      5. Access files from Google Drive
    4. Acrobat and macOS
    5. Acrobat notifications
    6. Grids, guides, and measurements in PDFs
    7. Asian, Cyrillic, and right-to-left text in PDFs
  4. Creating PDFs
    1. Overview of PDF creation
    2. Create PDFs with Acrobat
    3. Create PDFs with PDFMaker
    4. Using the Adobe PDF printer
    5. Converting web pages to PDF
    6. Creating PDFs with Acrobat Distiller
    7. Adobe PDF conversion settings
    8. PDF fonts
  5. Editing PDFs
    1. Edit text in PDFs
    2. Edit images or objects in a PDF
    3. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    4. Edit scanned PDFs
    5. Enhance document photos captured using a mobile camera
    6. Optimizing PDFs
    7. PDF properties and metadata
    8. Links and attachments in PDFs
    9. PDF layers
    10. Page thumbnails and bookmarks in PDFs
    11. Action Wizard (Acrobat Pro)
    12. PDFs converted to web pages
    13. Setting up PDFs for a presentation
    14. PDF articles
    15. Geospatial PDFs
    16. Applying actions and scripts to PDFs
    17. Change the default font for adding text
    18. Delete pages from a PDF
  6. Scan and OCR
    1. Scan documents to PDF
    2. Enhance document photos
    3. Troubleshoot scanner issues when scanning using Acrobat
  7. Forms
    1. PDF forms basics
    2. Create a form from scratch in Acrobat
    3. Create and distribute PDF forms
    4. Fill in PDF forms
    5. PDF form field properties
    6. Fill and sign PDF forms
    7. Setting action buttons in PDF forms
    8. Publishing interactive PDF web forms
    9. PDF form field basics
    10. PDF barcode form fields
    11. Collect and manage PDF form data
    12. About forms tracker
    13. PDF forms help
    14. Send PDF forms to recipients using email or an internal server
  8. Combining files
    1. Combine or merge files into single PDF
    2. Rotate, move, delete, and renumber PDF pages
    3. Add headers, footers, and Bates numbering to PDFs
    4. Crop PDF pages
    5. Add watermarks to PDFs
    6. Add backgrounds to PDFs
    7. Working with component files in a PDF Portfolio
    8. Publish and share PDF Portfolios
    9. Overview of PDF Portfolios
    10. Create and customize PDF Portfolios
  9. Sharing, reviews, and commenting
    1. Share and track PDFs online
    2. Mark up text with edits
    3. Preparing for a PDF review
    4. Starting a PDF review
    5. Hosting shared reviews on SharePoint or Office 365 sites
    6. Participating in a PDF review
    7. Add comments to PDFs
    8. Adding a stamp to a PDF
    9. Approval workflows
    10. Managing comments | view, reply, print
    11. Importing and exporting comments
    12. Tracking and managing PDF reviews
  10. Saving and exporting PDFs
    1. Saving PDFs
    2. Convert PDF to Word
    3. Convert PDF to JPG
    4. Convert or export PDFs to other file formats
    5. File format options for PDF export
    6. Reusing PDF content
  11. Security
    1. Enhanced security setting for PDFs
    2. Securing PDFs with passwords
    3. Manage Digital IDs
    4. Securing PDFs with certificates
    5. Opening secured PDFs
    6. Removing sensitive content from PDFs
    7. Setting up security policies for PDFs
    8. Choosing a security method for PDFs
    9. Security warnings when a PDF opens
    10. Securing PDFs with Adobe Experience Manager
    11. Protected View feature for PDFs
    12. Overview of security in Acrobat and PDFs
    13. JavaScripts in PDFs as a security risk
    14. Attachments as security risks
    15. Allow or block links in PDFs
  12. Electronic signatures
    1. Sign PDF documents
    2. Capture your signature on mobile and use it everywhere
    3. Send documents for e-signatures
    4. About certificate signatures
    5. Certificate-based signatures
    6. Validating digital signatures
    7. Adobe Approved Trust List
    8. Manage trusted identities
  13. Printing
    1. Basic PDF printing tasks
    2. Print Booklets and PDF Portfolios
    3. Advanced PDF print settings
    4. Print to PDF
    5. Printing color PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    6. Printing PDFs in custom sizes
  14. Accessibility, tags, and reflow
    1. Create and verify PDF accessibility
    2. Accessibility features in PDFs
    3. Reading Order tool for PDFs
    4. Reading PDFs with reflow and accessibility features
    5. Edit document structure with the Content and Tags panels
    6. Creating accessible PDFs
  15. Searching and indexing
    1. Creating PDF indexes
    2. Searching PDFs
  16. Multimedia and 3D models
    1. Add audio, video, and interactive objects to PDFs
    2. Adding 3D models to PDFs (Acrobat Pro)
    3. Displaying 3D models in PDFs
    4. Interacting with 3D models
    5. Measuring 3D objects in PDFs
    6. Setting 3D views in PDFs
    7. Enable 3D content in PDF
    8. Adding multimedia to PDFs
    9. Commenting on 3D designs in PDFs
    10. Playing video, audio, and multimedia formats in PDFs
    11. Add comments to videos
  17. Print production tools (Acrobat Pro)
    1. Print production tools overview
    2. Printer marks and hairlines
    3. Previewing output
    4. Transparency flattening
    5. Color conversion and ink management
    6. Trapping color
  18. Preflight (Acrobat Pro)
    1. PDF/X-, PDF/A-, and PDF/E-compliant files
    2. Preflight profiles
    3. Advanced preflight inspections
    4. Preflight reports
    5. Viewing preflight results, objects, and resources
    6. Output intents in PDFs
    7. Correcting problem areas with the Preflight tool
    8. Automating document analysis with droplets or preflight actions
    9. Analyzing documents with the Preflight tool
    10. Additional checks in the Preflight tool
    11. Preflight libraries
    12. Preflight variables
  19. Color management
    1. Keeping colors consistent
    2. Color settings
    3. Color-managing documents
    4. Working with color profiles
    5. Understanding color management

View comments

The Comments list appears in the right pane of the document window. The Comments list displays all comments in a PDF, and it provides a toolbar with common options, such as sorting, filtering, and other options to work with comments.

Comments list in Acrobat
Comments list

  1. Choose Tools > Comment.

    The Comments toolset is displayed in the secondary toolbar and the Comments list is displayed in the right pane.

  2. Using the Options menu at the upper-right corner of the Comments list, do any of the following:

    • Expand or collapse the comments. Click Expand All or Collapse All in the Comments list options menu. To expand an individual comment, click the comment or click (), in the comment. To collapse an individual comment, click () in the comment.
    • Create or Print Comment Summary.
    • Import and Export comments.
    • Export to Word or AutoCAD.
    • Specify Commenting Preferences.

You can expand the Comments pane for better readability of the long comments.

  • To resize the pane, align your cursor along the left boundary of the pane and then hold and drag towards left or right.

You can sort comments in the Comments list by page, author, date, type, unread status, or color. In a thread of replies, only the first message is sorted, and the reply messages are sorted in the same category as the first message in the thread.

  1. Choose Tools > Comment.

  2. In the Comment list, choose an option from the Sort Comments by menu .

You can hide or show comments based on status, reviewer (author), type, or color. Filtering affects the appearance of comments in both the document window and the Comments list. When you print or summarize comments, you can specify whether hidden comments are printed or summarized. When you hide a note comment that has been replied to, all other replies in the thread are hidden as well.

Note:

In an email-based review, hidden comments aren’t included when you send the comments to the initiator.

  1. From the Filter comments menu  in the Comments list, do any of the following:

    • To clear all filters, click Clear All. Alternatively, use Ctrl+8 (Windows) or Command+8 (Mac OS).

    • Use the toggle switch to show or hide all comments. Alternatively, use Ctrl+Shift+8 (Windows) or Command+Shift+8 (Mac OS).

    • To filter comments, choose the categories that you want to appear. For example, if you want only sticky note comments that you left unresolved to appear, choose > Types > Sticky Notes so that only the sticky note comments appear, and then choose > Status > Unresolved, so that only the unresolved sticky note comments appear.

    • To open all pop-up notes, right-click an annotation and choose Open All Pop-Ups. (Only available if the Comments list is closed)

    • To close all pop-up notes, right-click an annotation and choose Minimize Pop-Ups. (Only available if the Comments list is closed)

Reply to comments

Note:

In Acrobat Reader, commenting features are available only in PDFs that have commenting enabled. PDFs in a review workflow typically include commenting rights.

Replies to comments are especially useful in shared reviews, when participants can read each other’s comments. They can also be used by review initiators to let reviewers know how their suggestions are being implemented. When one or more reviewers reply to a comment, the set of replies is called a thread. In the Comments list, all replies are displayed. Replies are indented below the original comment.

  1. Open the pop-up note for the comment.

  2. Click Reply, in the upper right corner of the pop-up note.

  3. Type your reply in the box that appears.
  1. Select a comment in the Comments list.

  2. Type your reply in the box that appears.

  1. Select a comment and use @mention to get the attention of a document reviewer.

  2. Type your reply in the box that appears.

You can delete your comments in a PDF. However, you cannot delete other reviewers' comments.

  1. In the pop-up note, right-click the reply and choose Delete.

Change author name for comments

You can change your name displayed in the comments of a PDF file. Do the following:

  1. Go to Edit > Preferences (Windows), or Acrobat > Preferences (Mac). In the Commenting category, uncheck the option Always Use Log-in Name For Author Name, and then click OK.

  2. Select a comment in the Comments list. From the Options menu (), select Properties.

    Comment properties

  3. In the comment properties dialog, go to the General tab, and specify your name in the Author field.

    Change author name

  4. Select Make Properties Default option, and then click OK.

Set a status

For PDFs shared using Adobe Document Cloud

Status is useful for keeping track of comments that you’ve read, resolved or that require further action. By setting the review status, you can let the review participants know how you are going to handle the comment.

Select the comment in the Comments list and right-click. Alternatively, you can click the Options menu () for the selected comment and perform the following actions:

  • To mark the comment as resolved, choose Resolve.
  • To mark the comment as unread, choose Mark As Unread.

For PDFs shared using a network folder

Set a status or check mark

 In Windows, you can use a status or a check mark to indicate which comments you want to export to a Word document. By setting the review status, you can show or hide a group of comments and let review participants know how you are going to handle the comment. Once the review status is set, you cannot remove the review status display from the comment in the Comments list, even if you change the review status to None. Check marks are for your personal use and do not appear when others view the PDF unless you change the status of comments.

  1. Select the comment in the Comments list and right-click to show the Options menu. Then choose an option from the Set Status menu.

    The review status appears in the comment along with the name of who set the review status. If another reviewer sets the review status for that comment, both reviewers’ names and review statuses appear in the Comments list.

  2. To view a comment’s history of changes, right-click the note icon, markup, or title bar of a pop-up note, and then choose Properties. Click the Review History tab.

Flag comments with a check mark

  1. Select a comment in the Comments list. From the Options menu (), select Add Checkmark. You can also right-click the comment and select Add Checkmark. A check mark icon () appears on the comment.

Note:

By default, the checkbox is hidden. If you use checkboxes on multiple documents, Acrobat prompts you to enable the checkboxes for all documents.

To show checkbox for all comments, do the following:

  1. Go to Edit > Preferences (in Windows), or Acrobat > Preferences (in macOS). The preferences dialog box is displayed.

  2. In the Commenting category, select Show Checkbox under Making Comments.

    Show checkbox

  3. Click OK.

The checkbox is now available for all comments. To add a checkmark, select the checkbox next to the comment.

Print a comment summary

Summarizing comments is a convenient way to get a synopsis of all the comments associated with a PDF. When you summarize comments, you can either create a PDF with comments that you can print, or you can print the summary directly. The summary is neither associated with nor linked to the PDF that the comments are derived from.

Page layout options for comment summaries
Page layout options for comment summaries

A. Document and comments with connector lines on single page B. Document and comments with connector lines on separate pages C. Comments only D. Document and comments with sequence numbers 

By default, Acrobat prints PDFs with any stamps that were applied. For the greatest control over how comments are printed, choose  > Print With Comments Summary from the Comments list.

  1. Filter the comments to show only those you want in the summary. (In the Comments list, click Filter Comments and choose the categories of comments you want to show.)

    Filter category

  2. For the greatest control over how comments are printed, choose  > Print With Comments Summary. Alternatively, to create a separate PDF of the comments, choose  > Create Comment Summary.

  3. In the Create Comment Summary dialog box, do the following:

    • Choose a layout for the document and comments. The layout determines available options.

    • Choose how to sort the comments.

    • Specify a page range and choose whether to include pages without comments.

    • Select whether you want all comments to appear in the summary or only the comments that currently appear.

  4. Click Create Comment Summary.

Find a comment

Locate a comment in the Comments list by searching for a particular word or phrase.

  1. Choose Tools > Comment to display the Comments list.

  2. Click . In the Search Comments field, specify the word or phrase you want to search for.

The Comments list displays the comments that match the search criteria; the number of comments is displayed on the panel header.

Delete comments

You cannot delete other reviewers’ comments in a shared review, nor can you delete locked comments.

Note:

To delete all of the comments in a PDF, choose Tools > Redact > Remove Hidden Information. Then select the Comments and markups option from the Results pane. This feature is not available in Reader.

Delete a comment

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Select the comment and press Delete.

    • In the Comments list, right-click on the comment you want to delete, choose Delete from the context menu.

      Note: Before pressing the Delete key, make sure that the comment is selected.

Unlock a comment

Only available for for PDFs shared using a network folder

Note:

Only available for PDFs shared using a network folder

  1. Right-click the comment and choose Properties.

  2. Deselect Locked.

Spell-check all text in comments

You can spell-check the text you add in note comments and form fields. However, you cannot spell-check the text in the underlying PDF.

  1. Select the comment. From the options menu, choose Edit.

  2. Right-click the text, and select Check Spelling.

  3. Click Start. To change a word, do one of the following:

    • Edit the selected word. To undo your change, click Undo Edit. To accept your change, click Change.

    • Double-click a suggested correction.

    • Select a suggested correction and then click Change. Click Change All to replace every instance of the unrecognized word with the suggested correction.

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