Commenting

Acrobat is designed as a document handling program, because of this it has a multitude of handy commenting tools. These tools are used for editing drafts of documents, to ensure they reach the level of quality you are looking for.

To access most of these tools you have two options. The first option is to navigate to it by going to Comments, and then selecting the tool you wish to use. The other way is to use the comments tool-bar, seen below.

Text Editing

Possibly the most useful of the commenting tools is the Text Edit comment tool. To activate this tool, go to Comments and then select Text Edits. Another way to activate the tool is to choose the Text Edit button from the toolbar.

The first time you do this an explanation of the tool will appear, if you don't want to be reminded of what the tool does latter you can choose "don't show again". Once you deal with the explanation, you can begin marking the document. Do not worry any changes you make are not permanent. There are three main features of the Text Edit tool.

The first feature is insert text, this is just like inserting text in any other word processor but instead of the text appearing directly on the document it goes into a comments bubble. A blue carrot appears where you made your insertion, informing the author where you suggest they insert text.

Next is the Delete feature. Highlight the text you do not want and hit the delete key on your keyboard. The text will be crossed out with a red line, marking where you made your suggestion.

The last feature is replace. To mark what text should be replaced, highlight it as you would if you where deleting it. If you start typing while you have text highlighted then acrobat will assume you are making a replacement entry. The replacement entry is like the hybrid of both Delete and Insert, it creates a blue carrot that marks new text and crosses out the text you no longer want.

notes

If your comments do not directly relate to a particular area of text then you can use a "note". To insert a note, go to Comments, and then add note. You can also use the note tool button on the toolbar. A yellow box will appear accompanied with a small comment bubble. You can enter any comments you want into the yellow box. When you are done writing your comment click anywhere other than the box to un-select the box. You can move both the bubble and the box to a position that you believe relates more to them.

You can edit the properties of your notes to more clearly express what you are saying. To change the comment box click on the Options button on the box, from the drop down menu choose properties. From here you can change the appearance of the note either by altering its icon or color. You can also make the comment more transparent if it is blocking the view of the rest of the document. The properties panel also allows you to alter the author and subject, from the general tab.

There a few other types of notes you can use. These other notes are: Attach a File as a Comment, and Record Audio Comment. Attaching a file as a Comment allows you to use another document to comment, by attaching it to your existing document. Record Audio Comment lets you record your voice, this option can be useful if you are addressing those with poor eyesight.

Highlighting

The highlighting tool allows you to make marks on a document and accompany them with feedback. The subgroups of the highlight tool are: highlight, underline, and cross-out. You can access these tools by going to Comments, Commenting Tools, Highlighting, and then selecting the tool you want. As always there is a highlighter button on the tool bar.

The highlight tool acts just like it does in any other program, once selected you drag it across whatever text you want highlighted and it will highlight the text in a transparent yellow. If you want more pizazz in your commenting, you can change the color by right clicking on the highlighted region and choosing properties. You can change the default for future highlighting by right clicking the on the highlighting button on the tool-bar, and selecting properties bar. The properties bar will change with the different highlight tools.

Another highlighting tool is underlining. Just like the highlighting tool, you underline by having the tool selected and selecting a line of text. By default the underline is green. You can change the color the same way as with highlighting, or if you left the properties bar open it will change to an underline properties panel.

The last highlighting tool is cross-out. The cross-out tool works just like underline and highlight.

Stamps

Acrobat also has the ability to create digital stamps. These stamps are used in much the same way you might use a stamp on a paper document.

Stamps allow you to inform others of a variety of things. To use a stamp go to Comments, Commenting Tools, Stamp Tool.

Initially this will only give you a revised stamp, but you can change the type of stamp in two ways. The first way is to navigate back to Commenting Tools and, instead of selecting Stamp Tool, go down to Stamps. This will open up a sub-menu that lets you choose the type of stamp you want, the groups are dynamic (the "revised" stamp is dynamic, because it changes), sign here (signature related stamps), standard business (the classic "not approved" stamp is here), and favorites (you can add the stamps that bring you the most joy to this group). You can also make your own stamps, by going down this menu and selecting create custom stamp, you will be asked to choose a picture. This menu is also reached by using the drop down menu for the stamp button on the toolbar.

Navigating Comments

You can look over your comments by opening a Comments List window. To do this, go to Comments and chose show Comments List. This will open a menu, that you can navigate and that shows a list of all the comments on the document. You can except these changes or make comments on your comments. For the most part these options are for the original author to use and send back to the editor to inform them of changes they are making.

You can also make it possible for people without Acrobat to add comments by going to Document, and then to "Enable for Commenting and Analysis in Adobe Reader".