# How to comment on the PDF

The short version: open the PDF, highlight the bit you want to talk about, attach a note to it, save, and email the file back to me. Everything below is just detail on how your particular computer does that.

Please don't retype your comments into the body of an email or a separate document. Comments left in the PDF itself come back to me anchored to the exact wording you're responding to, which makes them far quicker to work through.

---

## If you're on a Mac

Double-click the PDF. It opens in Preview, which is already installed.

1. Drag across the text you want to comment on to select it.
2. Right-click (or Ctrl-click) the selection and choose **Add Note**.
3. Type your comment. Click anywhere else on the page when you're done.
4. Press **Cmd+S**.

A small coloured square appears in the margin. Click it any time to reopen or edit what you wrote.

If you only want to flag something without saying anything, right-click the selection and choose **Highlight Text**.

## If you're on Windows

Double-click the PDF. It should open in Microsoft Edge, which is already installed. If it opens in something else, right-click the file, choose **Open with**, and pick **Microsoft Edge**.

1. Drag across the text you want to comment on to select it.
2. A small toolbar appears. Click **Add comment**. (If it doesn't appear, right-click the selection instead and choose **Add comment**.)
3. Type your comment, then click the **tick** to save it.
4. Press **Ctrl+S**.

The text turns yellow with a small speech-bubble icon next to it. Hover over the icon to read the comment back.

## If you already use Adobe Acrobat Reader

Use it, it's better than either of the above. Open the PDF, click **Comment** in the toolbar, then either select text and use the highlighter, or use the sticky-note tool to drop a note on the page. Save with **Ctrl+S** or **Cmd+S** when you're finished.

## If you're on an iPad or a phone

Please use a computer if you possibly can. Phone and tablet PDF tools mostly let you scribble on the page rather than attach proper comments, and scribbles don't come through in a form I can work with.

---

## Sending it back

1. **Save the file.** This is the step people miss. If you close without saving, your comments are gone and neither of us will know until it's too late.
2. **Rename it** to include your surname, so I can tell whose copy is whose. `policy-draft-Kirkham.pdf` is plenty.
3. **Reply to my email with the saved file attached.** Check the attachment is the copy you edited and not the original.

Your comments come back to me and only me. Nobody else on the circulation list sees them.

## Things that will break this

- **Printing it, writing on it, and scanning it back.** I will not be able to read the comments as text.
- **Sending a screenshot** of the page with your comment.
- **Converting it to Word first.** Please don't.
- **Drawing or scribbling on the page** instead of attaching notes to text. Circles and arrows don't carry any words with them.

If none of this works on your machine, just write your comments in an email and tell me roughly where each one goes. That's much better than nothing.