Compare the Top PDF Annotators for Windows as of July 2025

What are PDF Annotators for Windows?

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 PDF Annotators for Windows currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Adobe PDF Library SDK

    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!
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  • 2
    MobiPDF (formerly PDF Extra)
    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 PDFs
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    Starting Price: $49.99
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  • 3
    PDF Studio
    PDF Studio is a powerful and affordable PDF editor that effortlessly caters to both simple and complex PDF tasks. From adding text, various annotations, watermarks, and digital signatures to filling out forms and converting MS Office to PDF, it covers all your needs. The PDF editor is perfect for companies and organizations looking to seamlessly automate their PDF editing and eliminate repetitive daily tasks with batch processing of multiple documents. Empower your team with perpetual PDF software at a fraction of the cost compared to competing subscription-based solutions like Adobe® Acrobat®. NEW: Qoppa PDF Studio 2023 released! The latest version, PDF Studio 2023, offers impressive enhancements, including support for Dropbox Team Spaces, improved enterprise deployments, expanded multi-document functions, a new highlighter marker tool, and optimization options for smaller document sizes. Available on Linux, Windows, macOS, and other major platforms.
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    Starting Price: $99.00
  • 4
    SwifDoo PDF

    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 2.0.0.6
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    Starting Price: $0
  • 5
    UPDF

    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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    Able2Extract Professional
    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
  • 7
    PDFgear

    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
  • 8
    KDAN PDF Reader

    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. **Spring Sale: Work smarter with KDAN PDF Reader—get 40% OFF Document 365 AI+, our AI-powered, cross-platform subscription. Offer ends May 8. 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 document
    Starting Price: $59.99/year (billed annually)
  • 9
    LightPDF

    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
  • 10
    PDFKit.NET 5.0

    PDFKit.NET 5.0

    TallComponents

    Create and manipulate PDF documents. Split, append, stamp, encrypt, extract, fill, and more. PDFKit.NET is a 100% managed (verifiable) .NET class library for creating and manipulating PDF documents. It consists of just a single assembly that can be xcopy-deployed. It has no dependencies other than the .NET framework. Central to PDFKit.NET is a consistent and highly intuitive object model consisting of classes like document, page collection, page, canvas, shape, bookmark, annotation, field, etc. The focus of the development team is always to ease the task of integrating our class library into a larger application. Fill text fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, etc., and save the form either editable or flattened with the PDFKit.NET 5.0. With PDFKit.NET 5.0 you can populate and consume dynamic XFA documents with the new XFA processor API. Extract all graphics on a page as a collection of shapes with PDFKit 5.0. Shapes can be text, images, and curves.
    Starting Price: $990 per year
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    MiniTool PDF Editor

    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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    Readiris

    Readiris

    I.R.I.S. Group

    Discover Readiris 17, PDF and OCR publishing software (optical character recognition) for windows. Have you dreamt of an intelligent, unique and intuitive solution to manage your PDF’s and paper documents? You've found it. Readiris 17 for Windows allows you to aggregate and split, edit and annotate, protect and sign your PDF’s. It’s also a global solution to convert, edit and transform all your paper documents into a variety of digital formats, intuitively with a few clicks.
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    CoolNew PDF

    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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