Remove Comments From a PDF

Review notes are stored as annotations, separate from the page. They keep the text of each note, the name of whoever wrote it and when — and they are easy to forget, because a reader only shows them when you turn comments on.

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What counts as a comment in a PDF

Anything a reviewer adds on top of the page: sticky notes, text boxes, highlights, underlines and strike-through, freehand drawings, stamps, and replies to another note. Each one can carry an author, a timestamp and its own appearance, and the text of a deleted paragraph sometimes survives inside one.

  • Sticky notes and their reply threads
  • Highlights, underlines and strike-through marks
  • Free text boxes, callouts, lines, arrows and freehand ink
  • Stamps, including ones made from a picture
  • The author name and date stored with each of them

Links and form fields are treated differently

Links to websites are annotations too, but they are part of how the document works, so they are kept unless you say otherwise — and their addresses are shown, because a link can carry tracking codes. Form fields are listed separately: you can empty them, flatten them into the page, or leave them editable.

Questions

Can I remove some comments and keep others?

You decide per item in the review step; the report then shows, for each one, what happened to it in the copy that was made.

Do the comments really disappear from the file?

Yes — they are removed from the document, not hidden. The new copy is reopened and scanned again, and the report lists the comment text that is no longer found.

Is a highlight still visible after its comment is removed?

No. A highlight is itself an annotation; removing it takes the coloured mark away as well as the note attached to it.

What about text that was struck through by a reviewer?

Strike-through is a mark on top of the page; the text underneath is still real text. If you want that text gone, remove it as personal information or as your own search term.