Click the Text Box tool at Comment > Annotate to make comments that remain visible - in contrast to Notes that can be shrunk to an icon. Drag a window and enter text. The text box expands to accept longer text. When entering a text, make a selection, right-click in the box and choose Properties from the shortcut menu to modify text properties for the selection in the toolbar shown below.
Use the Hand tool or the Text Box tool to select an existing text box and double-click to change the text. To change text properties, select part or all of the text, right-click and choose Properties; the following toolbar appears:
Click Set to specify current settings as default, or specify default values for text boxes by selecting File > Options > Comment.
To set text properties quickly, without using this toolbar, right-click on the selected section in the text box, then click on Text Style in the shortcut menu, and then select any format (Bold, Italic, Underline, Superscript, Subscript) to apply.
TIp: See the shortcut menu under Text Style for standard keyboard shortcuts for quick text formatting.
Use the Select tool or the Hand tool at the top of the Panel bar to move or resize a text box. To change its appearance, right-click and choose Properties to specify border style, thickness and color, a fill color, and an opacity value for the text box. You can also access the text box Author, Subject and History properties. To avoid accidental modification, choose the Protected checkbox. For more details on object properties, see Annotation and Markup Object Properties.
Click the Callout tool at Comment > Annotate instead of the Text Box tool, to add an arrow-headed line pointing from the text box to a place on the page.
Text added as a Text Box or a Callout remains as annotations. To work further with them, see below.
Handling Text Boxes and Typewriter Texts
This section gives practical guidance on using the Text Box tool and the Typewriter tool and how they differ from each other. Spell checking is available for both item types.
To place an item
Choose the Text Box tool (Comments > Annotate), click on the page, drag-and-drop to the desired size; a cursor appears ready to accept text in the box. The boxes resize vertically to accept further text. Line breaks can be used.
To place typewriter text, choose its tool (Edit > Modify), click at the desired location and type in the desired text.
Tip
All these tools remain active after items are placed, each new click is likely to create a new item. As soon as you do not wish to create more items of the same type, choose the Hand tool.
Comment panel listing
Text Boxes and Callouts are annotations, so they appear in the Comments panel, they accept replies and conversations, have a review status and can be migrated. Typewriter items do not appear in the Comments panel.
To select an existing item
Text Box: Use the Hand tool or the Text Box tool (this allows text changes) or the Select tool (this allows Text Box property changes).
Typewriter Text: Use the Typewriter tool and click on the text to create an editing box, just like the Edit Object tool does on real PDF text.
Changing format for a text selection
Text selections can be modified in all three cases. Select the item as described, double-click for a text cursor, make a text selection, right click and choose Properties. To change all text in the item, you must select it all. Changing Properties when the cursor is placed but no selection is made has no effect on the text. In text boxes with no selection, changed values cannot be set as default. With typewriter texts and boxes, changes without a text selection can be set as defaults and are applied to subsequent typewriter items.
Preferences and defaults
Formatting changes set as defaults under File > Options > Comments affect newly drawn text boxes only. They do not change texts in existing text boxes, and are not applied to typewriter texts. Defaults can also be changed by clicking Set in the Text Box Text Properties dialog box and then clicking OK to confirm. Defaults for the typewriter tool can be set in the same way. One set of defaults is stored for Typewriter Text, and these defaults do not apply to Text Boxes.
Right-click on a resized Text Box, then click Set as default to set its size as a new default. For details on how to set default properties (etc. Author, Color, Style) for newly created objects, see Changing Default Annotation and Markup Object Properties.
Flattening and Document Inspection
Text Boxes can be changed from annotations to document objects (so they become like typewriter texts) with the command Flatten Document. They can be removed by Removing Document Elements. Typewriter texts are not affected by flattening or removing document elements.