Top 5 Best Free and Paid PDF Annotator Software in 2024

Published 2023-09-29

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

Sl.No	Name of The PDF Annotator Software	Notable Features	Download Link	Price (Free Vs Paid)
1	Systweak PDF Editor	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 Strikethrough words or sentences that you wish to indicate are no longer valid.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.	Get Here	7-day fully functional free trial available. Then, pricing starts at $41.97/ year
2	Wondershare PDFelement	Insert shapes like triangles, rectangles, ellipses, etc. Insert text markups when needed. Stamp your PDFs. Add and edit comments.	Get Here	14-day trial. Pricing starts at $79.99/ year.
3	EaseUS PDF Editor	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.	Get Here	Free trial available for 15 days. Pricing starts at $20/ month.
4	SwifDoo PDF Editor	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.	Get Here	Free trial available. Then $19.47/ month
5	Adobe Acrobat	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.	Get Here	Free 7-day trial. Pricing starts at $19.99/ month

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.

Pros

Convert PDF files to a variety of file formats and vice versa.
Reduce the size of your PDF files.
Merge and split PDF documents.
Sign and encrypt your PDFs.

Cons

Only Available for Windows PC.

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.

Pros

OCR functionality to highlight scanned PDFs
Not just add but even remove annotations with ease.
Document cloud to manage, share, and work with PDFs across various devices.
Organize PDFs – extract, split, insert, and many things.

Cons

Installation can take some time.

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.

Pros

Choose your desired color when annotating a PDF document.
See all annotations via thumbnails in the sidebar.
Protect PDF documents by adding signatures or marking areas for redaction.
Convert PDFs to as many as 29 languages.

Cons

Limited form creation and collaboration features.

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.

Pros

Manage all annotations that you have performed in one place.
Highlight areas and even change the color of highlights.
Multiple editing options with which you can edit both texts and images in your PDF file.
Merge, split, convert, and compress PDF files.

Cons

When using some tools you may experience lags.

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

Get Here

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.

Pros

Add editing marks to indicate changes.
You can add multiple tools without reselecting the tool.
Edit text in PDF document.

Cons

Premium features are available in the paid variant.

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

Get Here

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.