Text Markup
By the Syncfusion DevTutorials team · Last updated
Highlight, underline, and strike out the exact words you mean, add comments to your marks, view every mark, and remove the ones you no longer need.
Comments can point readers to a page, while text markup marks the exact words to review. Highlight text to draw attention to it, underline it to flag it for checking, or strike it through to suggest deleting it. You can add a comment to explain a mark. In this lesson, you'll practise these marks, view them together, change their color, and remove them.
Open the Riverton Community News draft again with Open the practice PDF in the exercise below.
The four kinds of text markup
Here are the four kinds, and what they usually mean:
| Markup | Looks like | Common meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Highlight | Yellow behind the text | Important; look at this |
| Underline | A line under the text | Check this; add something here |
| Strikethrough | A line through the text | Delete this word or phrase |
| Squiggly | A wavy underline | Spelling or wording problem |
Teams often agree their own meanings, for example "strikethrough = delete, highlight = question". Use the same meaning throughout a document.
Highlight text
There are two ways, and both work for every kind of markup.
The first method is to select the text and then apply the markup.
Select, then mark
- With the Text selection tool (the arrow), select the words.
- Right-click the selection and choose Highlight (or Underline, Strikethrough, Squiggly).
This is the quickest way for a single mark.
The second method is to turn on the markup tool and drag across the text.
Turn on the tool, then drag
- Click Edit Annotation in the toolbar. A second toolbar appears.
- Click Highlight Text (the highlighter pen, first button).
- Drag across the words. Repeat for as many phrases as you like.
- Click Highlight Text again to switch the tool off.
This is faster when you have many phrases to mark.
The mark covers the text you selected, which may start a letter or two away from where you pressed the mouse. Watch the blue selection as you drag, and adjust before you let go.
Once you know how to highlight text, you can use the same methods for underline and strikethrough markup.
Underline and strike out text
Underline and Strikethrough work exactly like Highlight: select and right-click, or use the Underline Text and Strikethrough Text buttons on the Edit Annotation toolbar.
- Use Strikethrough to suggest deleting words: the reader still sees what was there.
- Use Underline for something to check or add to.
- To suggest a replacement, strike out the wrong word and add a comment with the right one: "recieve → receive".
A mark alone shows which words you mean; a comment on the mark says what to do with them.
Add a comment to a mark
Any mark can carry a comment, just like a sticky note:
- Open the Comments panel (Edit Annotation > Comment Panel). Your new mark is listed under its page, with your name and no text yet.
- Click that entry. An Add a comment.. box opens under it.
- Type your comment and click Post.
A mark with a comment is the clearest kind of feedback: it shows exactly which words you mean and what you want done.
View markups
Once the document has several marks, you need a way to see them all. The Comments panel (Edit Annotation > Comment Panel) lists every mark along with the sticky notes, page by page. Each entry has an icon showing its kind, so you can see at a glance how much feedback there is and where.
Click an entry to jump to the mark on the page. Replies and statuses work on marks just as they do on sticky notes.
Change a mark's color
Click a mark on the page to select it. The Edit Annotation toolbar then shows color and opacity buttons: pick a new color. Some teams use colors for meaning, such as yellow for questions and green for "approved".
If a markup is no longer needed, you can remove it at any time.
Remove markups
- Click the mark on the page to select it. A dotted box appears around it.
- Press the Delete key, or click Delete annotation (the bin) on the Edit Annotation toolbar.
You can also delete a mark from the Comments panel with ⋮ > Delete. Removing a mark also removes its comment and replies.
Markup is for suggesting changes, not making them. The words under a strikethrough are still in the PDF; the author makes the real change in the original document and creates a new PDF.
Text markup only works on real text. On a scanned page, there's no text to select: use a sticky note, or draw a shape around the area instead (next lesson).
Common mistakes
| Mistake | What happens | How to fix it |
|---|---|---|
| Highlight tool left on | Every selection gets highlighted | Click Highlight Text again to switch it off |
| Highlighting everything | Nothing stands out | Mark only key words |
| Strikethrough with no comment | The writer doesn't know what you want instead | Add a comment to it in the Comments panel |
| Trying to mark a scanned page | Nothing selects | Use a sticky note or a shape |
| Deleting the wrong mark | Someone's feedback disappears | Ctrl + Z to undo |
Exercise
Here is your chance to mark up a document yourself.
Click Open the practice PDF below to open the newsletter draft. Then do each task and press Check.
What to remember
- Highlight, Underline, Strikethrough, and Squiggly mark exact words.
- Select text and right-click to mark it, or turn on a tool in Edit Annotation and drag.
- Add a comment to a mark from its entry in the Comments panel; replies and statuses work as for sticky notes.
- The Comments panel lists every mark; click one to jump to it.
- Click a mark and press Delete to remove it.
- Markup suggests changes; it doesn't change the text.
In the next lesson, you'll draw on PDFs: freehand, rectangles, circles, arrows, and lines.