Printing a PDF that has been reviewed with sticky notes, highlights, and text comments should include those annotations on the printed page. The default print settings in most PDF readers suppress annotations, producing a clean printout that omits all the feedback. Enabling PDF Annotation printing requires changing one setting in the print dialog, but the location of that setting varies across PDF readers. Taking a moment to configure this setting before each print job ensures your printed output matches what you see on screen. For accessibility purposes, note that printed comments may not meet the same accessibility standards as the document content. Comment text is typically printed in a smaller font than body text, and the visual connection between a comment icon on the page and its text in the margin can be difficult for readers with visual impairments to follow. If the annotated document needs to be fully accessible when printed, consider incorporating the feedback directly into the document text rather than relying on printed comments.
Key Takeaways
PDF annotations including sticky notes, text comments, highlights, and drawing marks are stored in a separate layer from the page content. The print dialog has a "Document and Markups" or "Document and Stamps" option that includes this layer. The default setting prints only the document content and silently omits all annotations. Changing this setting takes seconds and applies to the entire print job.
Enable Annotation Printing in Adobe Acrobat
The comment summary option can also export comments to a separate PDF file rather than printing them. This creates a standalone document containing all comments with their page references. The comment summary PDF can be emailed to reviewers who do not have access to the original document. They can read all the feedback without needing the source file.
For documents reviewed by multiple people, print a separate comment summary for each reviewer. This gives each reviewer a focused list of their own feedback to address without seeing comments from other reviewers. The filtered approach is particularly useful in formal review processes where each reviewer is responsible for a different aspect of the document and cross-reviewer feedback creates confusion.
Open the Print dialog with Ctrl+P. At the top of the dialog, look for the "Comments and Forms" dropdown menu. The default setting is "Document" which prints only the page content. Change it to "Document and Markups" to include all annotations on the printed pages. Click Print. Every sticky note, highlight, text comment, and drawing markup appears on the printout exactly as it appears on screen.
When printing a document with many comments, the printed output can become cluttered because each comment adds a visual element to the page. Adjust the comment display settings before printing. In Acrobat, go to Edit, Preferences, Commenting, and adjust the comment pane and pop-up behavior. Reducing the font size of printed comments or switching to a condensed comment display format can fit more feedback on each printed page without overwhelming the document content.
The "Document and Markups" option prints annotations in their current state. Open sticky notes are printed as note icons with the note text in a callout. Closed sticky notes are printed as small icons without the note text. To print the full text of all sticky notes, open them all before printing. In Acrobat, right-click the Comments panel and select "Expand All" to open every sticky note. Then print with "Document and Markups" selected. Each note's full text appears on the printed page. This is particularly important when printing a document for someone who needs to read and respond to all comments without access to the digital file.
Print Comments Summary as a Separate Page
Adobe Acrobat can print a comment summary as an appendix page alongside the document. In the Print dialog, click the "Summarize Comments" button. A dialog appears with options to print a comment summary that lists every comment with its page number, author, date, and text. Choose to print the summary alone, or print the document with the summary appended as the last page. The summary format is useful for legal and regulatory reviews where the comment history must be documented as part of the record.
The comment summary can be filtered by author, type, or date before printing. If the document has comments from multiple reviewers, filter to show only a specific reviewer's comments. This produces a focused summary for that reviewer to address without the distraction of other people's feedback. Filtered summaries are also useful when distributing feedback to different teams responsible for different sections of the document. WukongPDF's PDF Printing features support annotation printing with configurable summary options, so reviewers can produce clean annotated printouts directly from the browser.
Print PDF With Annotations in Other PDF Readers
PDF viewers on mobile devices handle annotation printing differently from desktop viewers. The print options on mobile are typically more limited. If you need to print a PDF with annotations from a phone or tablet, use a dedicated PDF app rather than the built-in viewer. Dedicated PDF apps are more likely to include the annotation printing option that built-in viewers omit.
In Foxit Reader, open the Print dialog and look for the "Print What" dropdown. Select "Document and Annotations." In PDF-XChange Editor, the option is labeled "Print Markups" and is a checkbox in the Print dialog. In Preview on Mac, open the Print dialog, click "Show Details," and check "Print annotations." In all cases, the setting is in the Print dialog, not in the application preferences, and it must be enabled each time you print. There is no persistent preference for annotation printing in most readers.
Browser-based PDF viewers handle annotation printing inconsistently. Chrome's built-in PDF viewer does not print annotations at all. Firefox's PDF.js prints some annotation types but not others. If annotation printing is important, download the PDF and open it in a dedicated reader rather than printing from the browser. The extra step of downloading and opening in a reader ensures consistent annotation output.
If you regularly print annotated PDFs for review meetings, consider using the comment summary format instead of printing the annotated pages. The summary lists all comments in a compact table format that is easier to review in a meeting than flipping through pages looking for comment icons. Distribute the clean document and the comment summary as two separate handouts rather than one cluttered annotated document.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do handwritten ink annotations added on a tablet print the same way as typed sticky notes? Ink annotations are treated as drawing markups by most PDF readers. They print when the print setting includes markups, but their appearance on paper may differ from their appearance on screen. Ink strokes that look smooth on a high-resolution tablet display may print with visible pixelation if the pen input was stored at a lower resolution than the printer output. Test-print one page with ink annotations before printing the full document.
Can I print a PDF so that comments print in the margins rather than overlaid on the page content? Some PDF readers support a 'Comments in margins' print layout that moves all comment text to widened page margins, leaving the document content unobstructed. Check the Print dialog for a layout option labeled 'Comments in margins' or 'Separate comment area.' This layout is more readable than the default overlay layout when the document has many comments.
Can I configure my PDF viewer to always print annotations by default so I do not need to change the setting each time? Most PDF readers do not offer a persistent default for annotation printing. The setting resets to Document Only each time you open the Print dialog. This is intentional to prevent users from accidentally printing documents with internal comments visible. If you need to print many documents with annotations, batch processing tools can apply the annotation printing setting to multiple files automatically.
Can I print only the annotations without the document content?
Adobe Acrobat's comment summary feature can print a list of all comments without the document pages. This is useful for creating a standalone feedback document. The summary includes the page reference, comment text, author, and date for each annotation. It does not show the document content the comment refers to, so the recipient needs access to the document to understand the context of each comment.
Why do my highlights print as solid black blocks instead of transparent overlays?
This is a printer driver issue. Some printers render transparent highlight overlays as opaque blocks. Change the print setting from "Document and Markups" to print the document only, and the highlights will be omitted. If you need the highlights to appear correctly, print to a virtual PDF printer first, which handles transparency correctly, and then print the resulting PDF on the physical printer.
Do comments print if I use the Microsoft Print to PDF virtual printer?
No. The Microsoft Print to PDF printer flattens the document and typically omits annotations. To preserve annotations when creating a PDF from another PDF, use Save As instead of Print. Save As preserves the annotation layer. Print to PDF creates a new document without annotations.