Top 5 Best Free and Paid PDF Annotator Software in 2024

In today’s digital age, PDFs have become a norm when it comes to sharing and storing documents. That said, gone are the days when they were used just for reading. These days reviewing PDFs, collaborating with others to edit them, adding notes, and other such tasks have also become very common.

That’s where a dedicated PDF annotator software steps in. With one such software, you can markup the areas in your PDF so that the other person you are collaborating with knows which section to work on. You can let them know the exact areas where there are mistakes or where additions have to be made. Here are some of the best PDF annotator tools.

If you are looking for one such tool, we have made that task easy for you. We have zeroed down to 5 best free and paid PDF annotation apps that you can choose from.

What Can You Expect From A PDF Annotation Tool?

By using a PDF annotator app, you can do the following things –

• Add personal notes and comments for better understanding.
• Give or get comprehensive feedback to and from people you work with.
• Mark up erroneous areas.
• Organize content for easier navigation.
• Annotate for a better reviewal process.
• Create customized stamps.

Best Free and Paid PDF Annotator Software for Windows 11

1. Systweak PDF Editor

First on our list of best PDF annotator software for Windows 11 is Systweak PDF Editor. After spending some time with this PDF editing tool, we liked how easy it is to navigate around the tool. Not just  PDF annotation, it is an all-in-one tool with which you can perform almost any PDF-related task with ease. Let’s dive deeper into some of the best aspects of this application. Here’s how it fairs up against its competitors.

Notable Features

• Highlight important areas in your PDF document.
• Underline text or paragraphs.
• Strikethrough words or sentences that you wish to indicate are no longer valid.
• Add squiggly lines if you see grammatical errors or misspelled words.
• Erase redundant elements from your PDF document.

Pricing – 7-day fully functional free trial available. Then, pricing starts at $41.97/ year

2. Wondershare PDFelement

Wondershare PDFelement is a PDF solution that brings with it the power of AI. With it, you can edit, sign, convert, annotate, and do an ocean of PDF-related tasks. It makes annotating PDFs easy and it is one of the best PDF annotation apps for Windows 11. Talking of AI, using this feature you can quickly summarise PDFs, customize AI prompts, and translate or even rewrite entire PDF documents.

Notable Features

• Insert shapes like triangles, rectangles, ellipses, etc.
• Insert text markups when needed.
• Stamp your PDFs.
• Add and edit comments.
• Highlight texts or sections of texts.

Pricing – 14-day trial. Pricing starts at $79.99/ year.

3. EaseUS PDF Editor

Another dedicated PDF editing tool that offers a variety of annotation features is EaseUS PDF Editor. You can find most such tools under the “Comment” section. Again, it is one of those PDF editors that makes editing as well as managing PDFs a hassle-free process. It also comes with OCR capabilities with which it can recognize as well as convert image-based PDFs to editable format.

Notable Features

• Mark up PDFs using various shapes and arrows.
• Underline normally or add squiggly lines.
• Highlight important areas in your PDF.
• Add comments in your PDFs.
• Add text callouts.

Pricing – Free trial available. Then $19.47/ month 

4. SwifDoo PDF Editor

SwifDoo PDF Editor is a feature-packed PDF editing tool. One of its highlights is the host of annotation tools that it offers making it one of the best free PDF annotation software.  With these tools, you can make your PDFs more engaging and add new dimensions to your PDF presentations.

Notable Features

• Add various kinds of arrows, lines, and shapes to mark text.
• Label the status of your PDF by stamping it; here you can also create custom stamps.
• Add notes and comments so that your teammates can focus on the exact areas to work on.
• Erase unwanted areas.
• Add checkboxes.

Pricing – Free trial available for 15 days. Pricing starts at $20/ month.

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5. Adobe Acrobat

If you juggle with PDF documents, you sure have heard of Adobe Acrobat. Not only is it a decent PDF viewer but it also offers a variety of editing options. It also comes armed with some great annotation tools as well.

Notable Features

• Various shapes for marking up areas – lines, arrows, rectangles, ovals, clouds, callouts, etc.
• Add comments for better changes.
• Easily group and ungroup markups.
• Cross-platform availability.

Pricing – Free 7-day trial. Pricing starts at $19.99/ month

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Which Of The Above Best PDF Annotation App Would You Choose?

Whether you want to highlight key points in your PDFs, add personal notes and comments, or collaborate with others, a PDF annotation app for Windows is a must-have utility. With one such PDF annotator, you can change your static PDF documents into something more dynamic and intuitive.

If you find this post helpful, do let us know in the comments section below. We’d also like to know which of the above apps you use to annotate your PDFs. If your favorite didn’t make it to the list, do let us know in the comments section below while mentioning how the tool makes your workflow easy. Follow us on social media – Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.