#UPDATE MICROSOFT EDGE PDF READER WINDOWS#
Edge, Windows Ink, and digital signatures in PDFs And that’s where Edge’s new PDF capabilities become even more interesting. With a pen or a finger, you can draw whatever you’d like on a PDF form-even ink your signature. Just as in Office documents, Cortana is ready to jump in and assist.īut let’s jump back to one of the more powerful capabilities within Edge’s markup tools: inking. That pulls up the right-hand sidebar where Cortana can provide you with definitions, shopping advice, and more. Of course, once you highlight a word, you can ask Cortana about it, too. Finally, Sticky Notes have become truly useful!
Highlight a word or phrase, right-click, select the Note icon when the toolbar pops up, and you can annotate the PDF with a Sticky Note that collapses into a small rectangular icon when closed. I’ve always looked down my nose at Sticky Notes, simply because they squat obstinately on your desktop, refusing to really do anything until you banish them. You can automatically highlight a word in whatever color you choose (no inking required) add a Sticky Note, or look up the word using Cortana.įinally, Sticky Notes lives up to its promise. There’s even more cool markup tools to Edge’s PDF capabilities, which will come to light when you highlight and right-click a word on a PDF. If you have a pen, you can write, draw, or highlight text on the PDF document, or a dedicated button allows you to toggle finger-writing capabilities. That icon appears to the upper right, within the browser itself, right next to the Hub icon that stores your Favorites bookmarks and more. Just as with a webpage, you can unlock the markup capabilities by tapping the “pen” (otherwise known as the “Add Notes” icon) within the browser. (Adding text outside of a field doesn’t seem to be an option, however.) If you lack a pen, you can use a finger. Microsoft’s markup tools within Edge allow you to draw, highlight, or otherwise annotate a document. In the Fall Creators Update, however, Microsoft has extended markup capabilities to PDF files as well. Technically, you’ve been able to mark up a webpage ever since Windows Ink capabilities were introduced more than a year ago. The ability to annotate or mark up a PDF with a digital pen is probably the most subtle yet potent feature of Edge’s new PDF capabilities. One area it could improve, though, is beginning the narration at a user-indicated location, rather than beginning at the top of the document and then going line-by-line down the page. As it does with its ebook capabilities, Microsoft’s Edge browser offers the ability to read the PDF aloud. In assistive technologies, though, Edge redeems itself.
Microsoft’s narrator can read a PDF document aloud, something rival browsers can’t do. Microsoft might think about making that distinction more explicit. You (or anyone else) won’t be able to manipulate those fields or edit your text. Just be a bit careful: If you save the PDF within Edge, it’s still editable, and any field or data that you can manipulate could also be edited by whoever receives the PDF. Instead, to lock the PDF into read-only mode, you’ll need to “Print to PDF” and then save that file. Here, you can fill out a form and then-using an actual Save dialog-store the filled-out form to your hard drive. The ability to type into and fill fields not only can make a document easier to process, it also looks nice and neat.Įdge does away with this nonsense.
#UPDATE MICROSOFT EDGE PDF READER UPDATE#
Right now, both Chrome and Opera boast fillable PDF fields, while the Creators Update version of Edge did not. With both browsers, though, you can’t save a PDF file with fields filled out, unless you “print” to the Microsoft Print to PDF service. Edge will have fillable PDF fieldsįillable PDF forms don’t just look nicer-they can also speed up the processing of important documents like IRS tax filings. Note that it can’t fill fields, though, and actually recommends another browser or app to do so. IDGīy contrast, the Firefox PDF viewer is pretty robust. The new version of Edge within the Fall Creators Update, though, helps put Edge over the top. Here’s a quick rundown of how each feature works. Chrome and the Chromium-based Opera browser allow you to fill in fields with data, making them marginally more useful. Of the major browsers, Firefox currently has the most robust tools for viewing PDF files. The Edge PDF viewer available in the Creators’ Update is pretty bare-bones.