Editing annotations

Add, change and save annotations (highlights, notes, stamps, images, ink) in PDF files, from the context menu, keyboard or the Edit PDF toolbar.

Available in version 3.3 or later.

Most often you select text and press a to highlight it. At a glance:

Highlight: a highlights selected text; u underlines it. Shift + A / Shift + U also turn on Edit PDF mode.
Edit PDF mode: toolbar toggle to add, select, and change annotations.
Highlighter: free-hand marker stroke over anything on the page.
Copy / cut / paste: Ctrl + C, Ctrl + X, Ctrl + V.
Undo / redo: Ctrl + Z, Ctrl + Shift + Z.
Save: Ctrl + Shift + S saves into the PDF.

Highlight text #

Select text and press a. This creates a yellow highlight annotation:

A highlighted title and the unsaved changes dot on the tab

Here the title was selected and highlighted with a. The red dot after the file name in the tab shows that the document has unsaved changes.

Other annotations you can create from a selection (right-click → Annotations → Create From Selection):

highlight
underline
strike out
squiggly underline
redact

The selected text is also copied to the clipboard, so you can, for example, Ctrl + V it into the annotation’s Contents property.

Turn on Edit PDF mode #

Toolbar: Edit PDF button in the main toolbar.
Keyboard: Shift + A / Shift + U create a highlight / underline (like a / u) and turn on Edit PDF mode.
Command Palette: Ctrl + K, then Toggle Edit PDF (CmdToggleEditPDF).

The annotation tools show in a second toolbar row:

Find an annotation #

Find Annotation, near the end of the Edit PDF toolbar (before the Save button), opens a floating Annotations window: a search box (filter N annotations) over the list of the document’s annotations. Press it again, or close the window, to hide it. Also Ctrl + K, then Find Annotation (CmdFindAnnotation).

Add an annotation at the mouse #

Right-click → Annotations → Create Under Cursor creates an annotation at the mouse location:

text
free text
highlighter
stamp
image from the clipboard
image from a file (Image From File...)
caret
line, square, circle

Add a signature image #

To put a picture of your signature (or any other image) on a PDF page:

right-click the page → Document → Insert Image…, or
right-click the page → Annotations → Create Under Cursor → Image From File…

Pick a PNG (or JPEG, etc.). The image is stamped on the page and you can drag or resize it. Save with Ctrl + Shift + S or the Save button of the Edit PDF toolbar (see Save annotations to the PDF). See also Add an image to a PDF.

Note: this is an electronic signature image, not a cryptographic digital signature (right-click → Document → Sign Document…, see Sign a PDF; it uses a certificate from the Windows store or a .pfx / .p12 file). Sign Document can also draw a PNG or JPEG inside the digital signature itself, and you can turn off the “Digitally signed by” labels and the other lines.

Paint with the Highlighter #

The Highlighter is a marker pen: drag on the page and it paints a wide translucent stroke wherever the mouse goes, over pictures and blank areas as well as text. The selection-based Highlight (a) still needs text to attach to.

Start it with:

Toolbar: Annotations toolbar.
Context menu: right-click → Annotations → Create Under Cursor → Highlighter.
Command Palette: Ctrl + K, then Highlighter (CmdAnnotationHighlightBrush).

Drag to paint, release the mouse or pen to finish, Esc to cancel. Closing the hint at the bottom of the window also finishes polyline. The stroke keeps a constant on-screen width while you draw, whatever the zoom.

Ink is the same on a tablet: release commits that stroke and the tool stays selected so you can draw another. Esc or closing the hint leaves the tool.

The stroke is saved as an ink annotation in the HighlightColor from Advanced Settings (yellow by default) at 40% opacity, so you can move, recolor, or delete it like any other annotation.

Change an annotation #

Click an annotation in Edit PDF mode to select it. A compact property row appears under it (color, opacity, border, font, icon, line endings, Contents). A file attachment’s row starts with Attach File, and Save Attachment once a file is embedded. Icon, line-ending, and text-alignment menus show the glyph next to the name. The filter list and floating list also select an annotation when you click a row.

A selected free text annotation with its property row

Outside Edit PDF mode, click a file attachment whose file Sumatra can open (a PDF, for example) to open it in a new tab. Use Save Attachment on the page context menu to write it to disk.

Move an annotation #

In Edit PDF mode, left-click an annotation and drag it. This works for a selected shape annotation too (including polygon, polyline, and ink).

Delete an annotation #

Select it and press Delete (or press Delete with the mouse over it), or use Delete Annotation in the floating list.

Copy, cut and paste annotations #

Ctrl + C copies the selected annotation.
Ctrl + V pastes a copy with its top-left corner at the mouse. You can paste on another page, or into another PDF.
Ctrl + X cuts: it copies the annotation under the cursor (or the selected one, like Delete does) and the original is deleted when you paste, so nothing is lost if the paste doesn’t happen. Only the first paste moves the annotation; pasting again makes copies.
Copy and Paste are also on the page context menu and in the command palette.

Note: only annotations that can be moved can be copied. Text markup (highlight, underline, squiggly, strike-out) is anchored to the text it covers, so it can’t be copied and pasted elsewhere. Neither can file attachments, whose embedded file isn’t copied.

Undo and redo #

Ctrl + Z takes back the last change to the PDF, Ctrl + Shift + Z re-applies it. The Undo and Redo buttons on the Edit PDF toolbar do the same and are greyed out when there is nothing to step to.

One gesture is one step: creating an annotation also sets its color, size and contents, and a resize drag rewrites it as the mouse moves, but a single Ctrl + Z takes all of it back. The history covers everything that changes the document, not just annotations, and goes back to the state the file was opened (or last saved) in — undoing every change makes the document count as unmodified again.

Save annotations to the PDF #

With unsaved changes, the document’s tab shows a red dot after the file name.

Action	Shortcut / command
Save annotations to file	`Ctrl + Shift + S` (`CmdSaveAnnotations`), the Save button at the end of the Edit PDF toolbar, or right-click → Annotations → Save changes
Save to a new PDF	`CmdSaveAnnotationsNewFile` (the Save button’s drop-down, tab context menu, right-click → Annotations → Save to new file, or command palette)
Discard unsaved changes	`CmdDiscardChanges` (tab context menu Discard changes, or `Ctrl + K`, `Discard Changes` command in Command Palette) — reloads the file from disk
Save when closing	Prompt dialog — choose existing file, new file, or discard

Hover over the Save button on the Edit PDF toolbar for a drop-down with Save changes to followed by the file name, Save changes to a new PDF and Discard changes. They are greyed out while there is nothing to save.

When you close the document (or exit the app) with unsaved annotations, SumatraPDF asks if you want to save them:

Save to existing PDF overwrites the PDF with the newly added annotations.
Save to new PDF saves as a new file.
Discard changes loses the annotations.
Cancel, or closing the dialog, keeps the document open.

Tips #

Save with Ctrl + Shift + S before closing to skip the save prompt.
Use Discard Changes (CmdDiscardChanges) to drop unsaved work without closing the tab.
Use Shift + A to highlight and enter Edit PDF mode in one step.
Use Ctrl + X then Ctrl + V to move an annotation to another page or PDF.
Set HighlightColor to #80ffff00 for half-transparent highlights.

Set default colors, size, and opacity #

Open Settings → Advanced Settings… and edit the Annotations.* settings (or the Annotations block in the settings file, via Open Advanced Settings File…):

Setting	Used for
`HighlightColor`	New highlights (`a`) — default `#ffff00`
`UnderlineColor`	Underline annotations
`SquigglyColor`	Squiggly underline
`StrikeOutColor`	Strike-out
`FreeTextColor` / `FreeTextBackgroundColor`	Free text annotations
`FreeTextSize`	Default font size for free text (default `12`)
`FreeTextBorderWidth`	Border width for free text
`FreeTextOpacity`	`0`–`100` percent opacity for free text
`TextIconColor` / `TextIconType`	Sticky-note style icons
`DefaultAuthor`	Author name written into new annotations

Highlight, underline, squiggly and strike-out colors accept #aarrggbb so you can set a default opacity: #80ffff00 is a half-transparent yellow highlight. #rrggbb (6 digits) is fully opaque. You can still change one annotation’s opacity from the compact property row.

Free-text opacity is the separate FreeTextOpacity percent (0–100).

See Advanced settings for the full list.

Keyboard shortcuts with custom colors #

Ver 3.6+: CmdCreateAnnotHighlight accepts a color argument. You can bind e.g. green highlights to a key — see Customize keyboard shortcuts.

Add annotation commands to the toolbar via the Shortcuts array — see Customize toolbar. Example commands: CmdCreateAnnotHighlight, CmdCreateAnnotUnderline, CmdSaveAnnotations.

Annotations from other programs #

SumatraPDF can display most standard PDF annotations created in Acrobat, Foxit, etc. Some proprietary annotation types may show only an icon. Free-text presets and appearance vary between editors.