The days of printing pages to pen red ink to highlight amendments or typing out a list of changes in an email are long gone. Dean Cook looks at how annotating PDF files has become the easy, faster and more accurate way to apply changes.

We work with editors and content providers who always aim to supply clean copy for page layouts which can speed up the production process. However, the odd typo that wasn't picked up before can often appear after the pages have been laid out. That's fine — word blindness is common when writing content; it's how it works. We're used to running through a round or two of amendments before the artwork is signed off for print or to produce a digital publication, and this is where annotating PDFs comes into its own.

For anyone not familiar with annotating PDF files, here's a brief guide to show you what five easy-to-use tools you should use in Adobe's Acrobat.

How does it work?

Basically, using Acrobat's tools, amendments can be easily applied and saved within the PDF. The production artist can then import your requested amendments from the PDF directly into the original InDesign document. It then enables the production artist to see exactly what those changes are and where they need to be applied throughout the artwork while maintaining document conformity for onward applications. This process helps to significantly reduce time spent locating, interpreting and correctly applying the amendments. 

The toolbar

In Acrobat, we can see all the available tools (pictured below) at your disposal. The five key tools you would use are: Sticky Note (1), Highlight (2), Strikethrough (3), Text Replace (4), and Text Insert (5). We'll cover the features below.