Best Free PDF Annotators
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Compare the Top Free PDF Annotators as of April 2025
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What are Free PDF Annotators?
PDF annotation tools are pieces of software designed to allow users to add notes and highlight text on PDF documents. They can be used by students or professionals to mark up documents, make comments, and organize information in an intuitive way. Annotations may also include drawing shapes or adding images. The annotations can then be saved with the document for easy sharing and future reference. Compare and read user reviews of the best Free PDF Annotators currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.
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1
Adobe PDF Library SDK
Datalogics Inc.
Shorten development times & get to market faster with Adobe PDF Library. Global OEMs, SaaS and enterprise end-users rely on Adobe PDF Library to automate the creation, editing and management of PDFs. An Adobe partner, our SDK uses the same source code as Acrobat for stability, reliability and quality results. Adobe PDF Library gives developers flexible programming language and platform options, and is currently available in .NET, .NET Framework, Java and C/C++ on Windows, Linux, MacOS, as well as via NuGet and Maven. Our extensive documentation includes getting started guides, API references, and hundreds of sample code examples on GitHub to help developers precisely create and define PDF workflow solutions. Pricing for Adobe PDF Library is based on your business model & software usage. Free trial includes access to our PDF technology experts who can help with proof of concept as well as extend your free trial license if needed. Download and get started today! -
2
MobiPDF (formerly PDF Extra)
MobiSystems
MobiPDF (formerly PDF Extra) is an intuitive and powerful PDF editor and reader designed for today’s modern user - the cost-efficient alternative to Adobe Acrobat Pro you’ve been looking for. FEATURES OVERVIEW: PDF Viewer and Reader: Switch between page views or use "Read Mode" for distraction-free reading. Create and Edit PDFs: Modify text and images or start with a blank PDF. Convert to Office Formats: Easily turn PDFs into Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and image files. Leverage OCR: Transform scanned documents into searchable PDFs. Organize PDFs: Combine, split, reorder, and compress documents. Markup and Comment: Highlight, annotate, and add bookmarks or stamps. Fill PDFs: Seamlessly fill forms or create ones from scratch. Sign PDFs: Sign your documents anywhere—no ink required! Secure Your Work: Protect files with passwords, digital signatures, and 256-bit encryption. Offline Mode: Full functionality without internet access. Translate PDFsStarting Price: $49.99 -
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SwifDoo PDF
SwifDoo Software
SwifDoo PDF is a comprehensive, all-in-one PDF tool that offers features that most users often require. This free software comes with a user-friendly interface where most of its main features layout and can be easily recognized and accessed on the main screen of the program. SwifDoo PDF - the most functional PDF editor that can be successfully used by novice users and experienced professionals. Beginners will enjoy the simplicity and certain intuitiveness of the interface, as well as the ability to edit PDF files without much effort. SwifDoo PDF has a number of special features for scanning copy convert. Besides many convert features. PDF Reader PDF Annotation (Including Stamp) Picture/image Extraction (only need copy and paste from PDF) PDF Edit PDF Compress PDF Merge PDF Split PDF Signature System Requirements: Windows 10/7/8/vista/XP Edition: SwifDoo PDF 2.0.0.6Starting Price: $0 -
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DocMadeEasy
iDeskCentric
From NDAs to loans, from sales contracts to offer letters, Our eSignature tool DocMadeEasy helps companies of all sizes streamline and digitally sign their most critical documents. Unlimited electronic signatures are included in every subscription, plus powerful document features such as hosted sign, bulk sign and templates. Our tool is also a powerful PDF editor. You can use it to annotate pages, insert images, create or manage fields, whiteout texts, merge PDFs, and more. You can also use our service to securely share files with real-time control and insights. End-to-end encryption with AES256. Track and analyze how recipients engage with each page ofStarting Price: $0 -
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PDF Studio Viewer
Qoppa Software
PDF Studio Viewer is a cross-platform PDF reader that is reliable and easy to use. PDF Studio Viewer can annotate PDF documents and fill interactive forms. For more editing features, Qoppa Software publishes PDF Studio Standard and Pro editions. Features: -Display PDFs with high fidelity -Annotate & Markup PDFs -Fill & Save Forms -Render Digital Signatures & Layers -Advanced User Interface -Advanced Print & Search Options -Document Storage Integrations -DocuSign© Integration -
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Adobe Acrobat Reader
Adobe
View, sign, collaborate on, and annotate PDFs with our free Adobe Acrobat Reader. Only with Adobe Acrobat Reader you can view, sign, collect and track feedback, and share PDFs for free. And when you want to do more, subscribe to Acrobat Pro. Then you can edit, export, and send PDFs for signatures. Do more than just open and view PDF files. It’s easy annotate documents and share them to collect and consolidate comments from multiple reviewers in a single shared online PDF. Work on documents anywhere using the Acrobat Reader mobile app. It’s packed with all the tools you need to convert, edit, and sign PDFs. You can use your device camera to capture a document, whiteboard, or receipt and save it as a PDF. Acrobat Reader is connected to Adobe Document Cloud, so you can work with your PDFs anywhere. You can even access and store files in Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive.Starting Price: $1.95 per month -
7
Drawboard PDF
Drawboard
Drawboard PDF is the most intuitive PDF editing and markup app for Windows, iOS, macOS, android and web. Powerful PDF tools that feel good to use. Drawboard PDF – Get all the essential free. Mark up and edit any PDF with the ease of pen and paper. Drawboard Pro toolset - Upgrade to use advanced tools and Store+Share with your team. MARK UP AND DRAW All the drawing tools you need to mark and collaborate with the feel of pen and paper. INSERT Insert elements into your documents like, text, notes, callouts, signatures, images, audio notes, and more. MEASURE Take accurate measurements of elements on-page with technical measurement tools and calibration. MANAGE Local and Clouds PDFs in one place. Merge, split, reorder and compress COLLABORATE Real-time collaboration on-page in real time with instant syncing CROSS-PLATFORM Work from anywhere on any device, in real-time!Starting Price: $5.99 per month -
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UPDF
Superace Software Technology Co., Ltd.
UPDF supports editing, annotating, and managing PDF seamlessly on for Windows, Mac, iOS and Android. You can get every tool you need to edit, annotate, and organize your PDF files in one premiere all-rounder smart application. It is explicitly designed to meet the desire of most users for a stunning yet very comprehensible interface that is not just only for beginners. Key Features: 1. Edit PDF Document - You can add or delete texts as well as edit the text's properties and formats such as its font style, font color, and size. - You can also crop, rotate, replace, extract or delete images. 2. Annotate PDF - Easily highlight, underline, and strike out those parts. You can also add shapes, sticky notes and text boxes for a quicker and easier means of adding texts. 3. PDF Page Management - Rotate, delete, extract and rearrange PDF pages as you need. 4. View and Navigate PDF Files - Flexible reading mode such as single page mode or double-page mode.Starting Price: Free -
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Systweak PDF Editor
Systweak Software
To work & edit PDFs, Systweak PDF Editor offers a range of features and tools. Using them, you can mark text for redaction, OCR PDF, sign, split, compress, batch convert, lock, unlock, and make other changes.Starting Price: $69.95 -
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Able2Extract Professional
Investintech.com
Convert, create, edit, OCR, compare, and sign PDFs. Customize the interface language and its appearance from light to dark themes for working with PDFs comfortably. Tailor your conversions by selecting a page, a paragraph, or even a single line for conversion. Custom PDF to Excel conversion to convert complex PDF table data to Microsoft Excel with pinpoint precision and a Smart Layout Detector for keeping table styles intact. Edit PDF text and pages. Annotate and redact PDF content. Sign PDF documents. Fill, edit and create PDF forms. Split documents into even parts. Convert scanned PDFs in English, French, Spanish, and German. Automate the batch PDF conversion process by queuing up a large volume of PDF files and even whole directories. Batch create PDF from a wide range of formats and merge all PDFs into one file. Create secure PDFs from blank pages or existing documents by adding passwords and file permissions. Able2Extract Professional: Your Swiss Army Knife for PDF files.Starting Price: $149.95/one-time/user -
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PDFgear
PDFgear
PDFgear is an all-in-one PDF solution that helps users view, edit, protect, convert, sign, annotate, organize, OCR, Copilot, organize PDF files, and make more possibilities on Windows, MacOS, iOS, and iPadOS. PDFgear offers all expected functions in its clean and straightforward interface so users could enjoy their document reading and editing experience without disturbance. PDFgear Copilot provides more possibilities as a personal document assistant. As it's powered by AI, users could easily manipulate all PDFgear functions and chat with PDFs by asking PDFgear Copilot. Get lost in various functions and comprehensive document content? Don't worry! Just ask Copilot! It will cover everything. With PDFgear and Copilot in it, processing PDF is like a walk in the garden.Starting Price: Free -
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SignFlow
PDF Technologies
Simple but mighty! SignFlow makes reading, annotating, editing, e-sign, organizing, filling, secure PDFs effortless! Packed with essential PDF tools, SignFlow is your best PDF files partner. SignFlow allows you to apply a legally-binding digital signature in PDFs, and it provides an effortless PDF solution for you to create, edit and fill out PDF forms. You can edit text in PDFs like word, manage and edit PDF pages, annotate and view your PDFs. Enjoy different reading modes, such as Full-Screen, Single Page, Read Mode, Split View, Multi-tab. You can smoothly scroll pages and switch between day mode, night mode and eye-protection mode. Annotate to remember! You can highlight, underline, strikethrough texts in PDF. There are colors for you to emphasize different information. Enrich your PDFs with standard business stamps like APPROVED, digital stamps, dynamic stamps and custom text/image stamps. -
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Xodo
Apryse
With Xodo, you can edit, annotate, sign, and share PDFs on desktop, mobile, and web. Xodo makes working with PDFs quick and easy, so you can get things done. Gone are the days of printing and faxing. Sign contracts, expense reports, cover letters, or any other document on your smartphone or tablet, using just your finger or stylus. Sign it then and there. Instead of fumbling for a pen or wasting printer ink, use just your finger to sign any document. Save your signature to sign future documents instantly with just a tap of your finger or a click of the mouse. Then save and share with whoever needs it. What used to take back and forth emails can now be done in seconds. Xodo takes the stress out of filling forms. Simply complete forms on the go from your smartphone or tablet by typing onscreen for fill-in fields and tapping to select checkboxes and other options. Save time and energy. Fill in forms from your smartphone or tablet, then save and share with whoever needs to see it. -
14
KDAN PDF Reader
Kdan Mobile Software
KDAN PDF Reader is your all-in-one PDF solution. Edit, sign, OCR scan, convert, annotate, and fill forms in PDF documents. With innovative AI features, speed up your document workflow! Designed for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, KDAN PDF Reader is trusted by millions for its comprehensive features and efficiency. AI FEATURE • Analyze and extract key information or tables from a PDF, then convert the data into spreadsheets for further analysis or visualization. • Chat with PDF and get document analysis, advice, new ideas, or content summary • Text redaction - automatically identify and block sensitive information in a documentStarting Price: $59.99/year (billed annually) -
15
TinyWow
TinyWow
TinyWow provides free online conversion, pdf, and other handy tools to help you solve problems of all types. All files both processed and unprocessed are deleted after 1 hour. Convert PDF to JPG and download each page as an image. Convert PDF to PNG and download each page as an image.Starting Price: $5.99 per month -
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HiPDF
Wondershare
Wondershare HiPDF is an AI-powered online PDF solution that offers a wide range of features such as chatting with PDF, AI reading, editing, converting, and managing PDF documents. With its user-friendly interface and free plan, HiPDF allows users to easily summarize, explain, rewrite, merge, split, compress, convert, rotate, unlock, and protect PDF files with just a few clicks. As a member of the PDF Association and having received internationally recognized certifications such as ISO 27001 and SSI SECURE, HiPDF ensures both simplicity and security in editing PDFs, having processed millions of files cumulatively.Starting Price: $5.99 per user, per month -
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CoolNew PDF
CoolNew Software
CoolNew PDF offers all-in-one experience to awesomize your PDF experience. All the tools you’ll need to be more productive and work smarter with documents.21 tools to convert, compress, and edit PDFs . Conversion features include CAD, office, image, texted and scanned copy conversions. Editing features include text, image, eraser, page number, size, watermark, paragraph and more. Users can combine or split PDFS, extract contents and optimize pdfs. merge and compress PDF. Reading and annotation features included. It edits, annotates, converts and combines file by one click, makes your tasks finish faster. CoolNew PDF offers you a familiar experience for editing PDF, just like you did it in Office.Starting Price: $6.49 -
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AmindPDF
AmindPDF
AmindPDF's user interface is very user-friendly and makes the operation of PDF easy. It can recognize PDF text as paragraphs or whole blocks of text, allowing users to edit text directly and smoothly, like in MS Word. for PDF protection, it allows adding passwords, setting document permissions, placing signatures, adding watermarks to PDF It also supports batch operations to process files, such as merge/split tool, compression tool, creation tool, Bates numbering tool, and conversion tool, so users can process multiple PDF files at once. AmindPDF is available for a number of platforms: Windows, iOS, and Android. Users are able to use the same PDF tool on a computer or mobile phone. So AmindPDF let you process or edit PDFs anytime, anywhere.Starting Price: $9.90 -
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LiquidText
LiquidText
Review documents faster. Find facts effortlessly. See the connections others miss. Go past the limits of paper with LiquidText. Note-taking and document analysis tools have changed little from the margin notes, highlighting, and sticky notes we have used forever. Most apps today try to duplicate paper, but, in spite of this, over 80% of knowledge workers still prefer paper at work and school. LiquidText moves beyond paper. It captures your reading, notes, highlights, annotations and observations just like paper; but goes further to reveal their connections, to source materials and each other in a way that documents and maps your project in a clear and shareable form. We connect related notes into ideas, and we connect your ideas into reports. Every note, idea and observation can be connected to others, and a single tap can show those relationships and original context.Starting Price: $7.99 per month -
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LightPDF
Wangxu Technology Co.,Ltd.
LightPDF was designed to allow everyone to process PDF documents in the easiest way possible. Indeed, LightPDF comes with an easy-to-use interface. With this program, you can perfectly read PDF, edit or convert PDF. Built-in PDF editing features: Modify a PDF: add texts, annotate, insert links, add headers and footers. Convert PDF to other formats: Word, Excel, PPT, JPG, PNG, HTML, etc. Manage PDF pages: insert or delete pages, rotate pages, extract, replace, split or merge pages. Sign a PDF: add a manual or digital signature. Lock PDF: Add a password to your PDF document. Other tools: OCR, compress PDF, add background, etc. This all-in-one online PDF solution includes over 20 practical PDF tools which may simplify your digital work and boost productivity. You are able to edit, convert, compress, merge, annotate, watermark and manage PDFs or use the OCR functions without a hitch.Starting Price: Free -
21
Sumnotes
Fifth Force
An online PDF and Kindle annotation management tool that saves you hours of gruesome work. Have your PDF and Kindle annotations available for you to download in various formats in a matter of seconds. We summarize annotations from your PDFs, Kindle books and Instapaper articles. Save yourself a headache of searching for a tool to annotate and extract annotations from your books or PDF material. Sumnotes is the only simple, yet robust solution to extract annotations from PDF books, lecture notes or research papers, helping you to focus on what matters to you. With one click, import and synchronize annotations made across various platforms. With our batch import capability, importing your entire library is a breeze. We support PDF documents annotated in any official PDF software, including Adobe products and Preview on Macs. We also excited to announce that we support Kindle highlights! -
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DeftPDF
DeftPDF
An all-in-one free online PDF editor that does not require subscriptions or installations! DeftPDF is a free online tool that makes editing and converting easy in just a few clicks! Our servers process the files for you. Files stay secure. After processing, they are permanently deleted. Use the PDF editor to edit & sign PDF files online for free. You can also fill out PDF forms online, change or add text on a PDF, edit existing PDF text, add images, create links or edit hyperlinks, and annotate in your PDF document. You can be assured that your files are safely uploaded over an encrypted connection. The files will permanently be deleted after processing. To upload files from Dropbox, Google Drive or from a website where your files are located, expand the drop-down list and select your files. You can edit any existing text on the document and change fonts or format such as bold, italic, size and color.Starting Price: Free -
23
Readdle PDF Converter
Readdle
PDF Converter transforms any file you have on the iPad into a PDF document. Open or download files from e-mail, cloud or web right on your iPad and convert them into good-looking PDFs. PDF Converter’s existence is devoted to this purpose, and the app does it well. Everything from a multi-million contract to a web page can be saved as a PDF in seconds. That’s right, PDF Converter can create great PDFs from almost any file type, including email attachments, iWork and MS Office files, photos, web pages, and much more. When your PDF is ready, view, annotate, edit or merge it using the powerful tools of PDF Expert. The results are accurate and identical to the original documents since we have full control of the conversion process. Also, it is 100% secure since it is done locally on the iPad. Your documents never leave it and you do not need an active online connection. -
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MiniTool PDF Editor
MiniTool Software Ltd.
MiniTool PDF Editor is a program that lets you edit all your documents in PDF format. You can convert them to other formats, combine several documents into one, separate a document into several different files, and, of course, annotate documents with various writing tools. When it comes to converting PDF files, MiniTool PDF Editor offers a wide variety of different formats. You can convert any PDF document to the following formats: Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Powerpoint, JPG, PNG, BMP, TXT, HTML, EPUB, CAD, and XPS. And, of course, you can also convert any document in one of these formats into PDF. Like this, for example, you can transform an ordinary image into a PDF in a matter of seconds. The same can be done with a spreadsheet. MiniTool PDF Editor is an excellent app, thanks to which you can modify your PDFs quickly and easily. The program's interface is also very comfortable, so you'll have no problem mastering all its features in just a few minutes.Starting Price: $0 -
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FreePDF
SoftMaker
The free PDF editor for personal and business use. Create, edit, view, print and annotate PDF files... free of charge! Do you want to insert pictures into a PDF file? Do you want to change the order of pages in a PDF? Do you want to add new pages or delete existing ones? You can do all of these things with FreePDF! FreePDF can perform the following tasks for you: Rearrange the order of the pages in a PDF file, insert pages from other PDFs or remove pages. Insert pictures and drawings into your PDF and position them as desired. Customize the layout of PDF files by rearranging, moving and removing text and pictures. ... and much more! Of course, FreePDF is also a great PDF viewer that lets you view and annotate PDF files quickly and conveniently. The built-in PDF printer driver creates PDF files from any Windows application. In addition, FreePDF supports the secure encryption of PDFs. -
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AvePDF
PSPDFKit
Complete solutions for document processing, analysis and conversion. Providing innovative solutions for document imaging and document management. Imaging technologies. Since 2003, we develop solutions to manage electronic documents (locally or online). Below is a selection of the technologies used by ORPALIS: Full PDF support. View, process, edit, annotate, compress, and sign all your PDFs TWAIN and WIA scanning. Manage all scanners and acquisition devices. Barcode reading and writing. 1D and 2D (Datamatrix, QR-Code, Micro QR-Code, PDF417, and more). Hyper-compression. Mixed raster. Content compression, Color Detection, JBIG2 & JPEG 2000 compression. Formats support. View and convert documents in 100+ formats Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Extract text and MICR characters from scanned images. Form/template recognition. Automatic Document Recognition and forms processing. Annotations. Use various tools to annotate your documents online and offline. -
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Slim PDF Reader
Apryse Software
Copy and paste PDF text, annotate PDFs, fill out interactive PDF forms, and validate digital signatures you receive on Windows, Mac, and Linux with a lightweight & completely free Slim PDF Reader. It comes with a Dark theme setting that will help you save battery on a laptop and reduce eye strain, a full range of advanced and customizable annotation tools, various document navigation tools, search and print features, ability to copy text for pasting into another application, snapshot tool, interactive PDF form filling and signature verification features. Slim PDF Reader is one of the smallest desktop PDF readers (download size only 15 MB), 100% bloatware free, fast and easy on system resources.Starting Price: Free
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