Annotate PDF — Add Text, Shapes & Highlights

Mark up your PDF documents with text labels, rectangles, highlights, and freehand drawings. 100% private — nothing leaves your browser.

Drag & Drop PDF file here

or click to select a file from your device

What is the GetIntoPDF PDF Annotator?

GetIntoPDF's PDF Annotator is a powerful, web-based markup tool that allows you to overlay text labels, colored rectangles, translucent highlights, and freehand pen drawings directly onto your PDF document pages. Built entirely on client-side JavaScript technology, it processes your documents exclusively within your browser's memory — no file data is ever transmitted to any external server.

How to Annotate PDF Files Online Step-by-Step

Adding annotations to your PDF takes just a few clicks:

Upload PDF: Drag and drop your PDF document into the upload area, or click to browse files.
Select Annotation Tool: Choose from Text, Rectangle, Highlight, or Freehand Draw in the toolbar.
Click to Annotate: Click anywhere on a page to place text, or click-and-drag to draw shapes and highlights.
Customize: Change colors, font sizes, and reposition annotations by dragging them.
Save & Download: Click "Save & Download" to bake all annotations into the PDF and download the final file.

Common Use Cases for PDF Annotation

Document Review: Mark up contracts, proposals, and reports with comments, highlights, and correction notes before sending them back to authors.
Academic Grading: Teachers and professors can annotate student submissions with feedback, grades, and correction marks.
Legal Markup: Highlight key clauses, flag inconsistencies, and add margin notes to legal documents during due diligence review.
Construction & Architecture: Draw attention to specific areas on blueprints and floor plans with colored rectangles and text labels.

Privacy Guarantee: Zero Server Storage

Annotating confidential business documents, medical records, or legal contracts requires absolute data security. GetIntoPDF uses Mozilla's PDF.js library for visual rendering and pdf-lib for binary modification — both execute entirely within your browser's isolated sandbox. No file bytes are ever uploaded to any remote server or cloud storage.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Yes. When you click "Save & Download", all text, shapes, and drawings are permanently rendered into the PDF's content stream using pdf-lib. They become part of the document and will appear in any PDF viewer.

If the PDF has an owner password (restricting editing), our tool will attempt to open it. If it requires a user password to view, you'll need to unlock it first using our Unlock PDF tool.

No limits. Our tool uses intelligent page virtualization — only pages visible in your viewport are rendered to canvas, so even 100+ page documents work smoothly without crashing your browser.