Remove Annotations, Comments, and Markups from a PDF
PDFs accumulate annotations during review cycles — comments, highlights, sticky notes, strikethroughs, and drawing markups. Before distributing the final version, you usually want a clean copy without these review artifacts. The remove annotations tool strips all markup while leaving the underlying document content untouched.
How to Remove Annotations, Comments, and Markups from a PDF
- 1Load the annotated PDF
Drop the PDF into the annotation removal tool. The tool scans the document and identifies all annotation types present: text comments, highlights, sticky notes, drawings, stamps, and markup.
- 2Choose what to remove
Select which types of annotations to remove. You can remove all annotations, or selectively remove only comments, only highlights, or only markups. This gives you control over what stays and what goes.
- 3Apply the cleanup
Click remove. The selected annotations are stripped from the PDF. The underlying document content — text, images, layout — is unchanged. Only the annotation layer is affected.
- 4Verify the cleaned document
Download the clean PDF. Open it and confirm no annotation remnants remain. Check that no document content was accidentally removed. The result should look like the original document before any review comments were added.
Remove annotations now
Strip comments and markup. Clean document in seconds. Done in your browser.
Remove AnnotationsFrequently Asked Questions
Can I undo annotation removal?
No. Once annotations are removed from the PDF, they can't be recovered. Keep the original annotated version if you might need to refer to the comments later. The clean version is a separate output file.
Does annotation removal affect form fields or signatures?
Form fields and digital signatures are different PDF elements from annotations. The tool targets annotation types: comments, highlights, sticky notes, and drawing markups. Form fields and signatures should remain intact.
Will removing annotations reduce file size?
Yes, especially if the annotations included embedded images (stamps, signature images) or extensive comment text. The file size reduction depends on how many annotations were present.
Can I remove annotations from specific pages only?
The tool processes the entire document. To remove annotations from specific pages only, use the Split tool first to isolate those pages, clean them, then re-merge with the unannotated pages.
Your document stays on your device
Annotation removal processes your PDF entirely in your browser. Review comments and markup remain on your device throughout the cleanup process.