Adding comments to a document and sending a link

This guide explains the basic process of getting a document into the A.nnotate system, adding your comments and sending a link to someone else so they can read or reply to your comments.

It applies to the case where you have been sent a document by email but you wish to use A.nnotate to provide your feedback on it. If the person who sent you the document has already uploaded it to A.nnotate themselves and sent you the link you can go straight to the second section: Adding comments and tags.

Adding a document

There are two ways to add a document to your A.nnotate account:

Method 1: uploading

Log in at a.nnotate.com.

At the top right of the documents page there is an upload button. The button brings up an upload box.

Click "Browse" to select the file. The other elements are optional: you can add some notes about the file to help remember what it is, and below that is a list of recently used tags. You can associate these with the file just by clicking them, or you can create a new tag by typing it in the line below.

Finally, clicking "Upload" transfers the file to A.nnotate.com and the annotatable version should appear a few seconds after the transfer is complete.

Method 2: email

The other way to get a document in is to send it as an email attachment to cc@nnotate.com . A.nnotate uses the address you sent it from to work out who you are, so if you have multiple email accounts, you should send it from the email address you use with A.nnotate. When the file arrives A.nnotate will send a message back to you with a link to open up the annotatable version.

Adding comments and tags

To add a comment to a particular word or phrase, select the words with the mouse by clicking and dragging. Unlike text editors, you click on a word to select it, not in the space just before it. You can only select whole words, or sequences of words, not single letters. Clicking anywhere on a word will select it.

After selecting some text, a box appears to add a comment or tags.

Simply type your comments in the yellow area and click "Save" to put them on the document.

The area below the text entry box is for tags. These can be used on their own (without writing a note) or in conjunction with a note. You can select from existing ones by clicking on them, or add new ones where it says "New tag". If you type a new one it will try to auto-complete from all the tags you have used before as shown below. You can also click the down arrow to the right and select "more..." to get a scrollable list of tags.

If you add tags but no note and click "Save" a small bubble will be attached to the text in the page showing the tags. For notes, a little box is shown with the note above the target text. You can hide notes by clicking the 'x' in the top right of the note box; click on the highlighted text to show the note again.

Colors and corrections

Notes will automatically have the date and your ID attached to them. You can also change the color with the button at the top left of the note editor.

Clicking on a note activates controls at the top where you can edit it, add a reply, or delete it. Clicking "Edit" brings up the note editor as before. If you share a document with other people, and someone adds a reply to a note, then the edit option is no longer available (you can't change the text that they have already responded to) but you can always add a reply to your own notes.

Document navigation

The top and bottom of each document page has a navigation bar that lets you jump to other pages, or go through the document page by page with the left and right arrows.

You can also go through the notes one by one in document order with the up and down arrows on the controls at the top right.

The leftmost button on the bottom row brings up the note display style menu. This changes the way notes are displayed between: no notes, boxes above the text (the default), in the right hand margin, and as footnotes.

When they are displayed in the right-hand margin, they sometimes overlap the text. To correct this you can move the page itself over to the left by clicking on the background and dragging it. You can also change the width of the margin column by dragging the little left and right arrows shown on the left hand side of the active note.

Letting others see your comments

Finally, having added comments to a document, you probably want to let someone else see them. You can do this with the "Send" button at the top right. It brings up a window where you can enter the email address of the person you want to share the notes with.

Alternatively, if your email client is configured to open straight from the browser, you can click the 'open the message' link to open your email client with the message. The message contains a special link that authorizes the recipient to see the document. When they click on the link they see the document in the browser with notes on it just as you created them. They can also add new notes and reply to existing ones. People you send an invitation to do not need to have an A.nnotate account, and will not be charged anything for adding notes to your documents.

Another option is to simply copy the URL link in the browser's 'Location' bar into an email message to invite comments. This method lets you send a link to a particular page or note on a document, and you can use the link from your blog or web page if you want to open up a document for public comments.