Edge Legacy has an integrated inking tool. It allowed anyone to mark, highlight, draw, add text and share text from the PDF file. However, as Edge transformed and started using Chromium, all of these unique features were lost. The good news is that Microsoft is bringing all of these tools back to the new Edge. In this article, I will share how you can use the PDF tool and the inking functionality in Microsoft Edge Chromium. These tools will continue to be updated as the work progresses and should match what Legacy Edge has offered.
PDF tool and inking functionality in Microsoft Edge
When we say PDF tool, it also includes the inking function. Since this is one of the most used functions, it gets all the reflections. Here is the list of tools currently available
- Inking on PDF files
- Support for highlighted text
- Add text to PDF
Microsoft Edge does not support e-books as it switched to the Chrome engine. You will need to use third-party applications to read ePUB files.
1]Inking on PDF files
When you open the PDF file in Microsoft Edge, it launches the PDF toolbar with it. The tools, including two important inking mechanisms: draw and erase. The drawing tool allows you to take notes on PDF files, draw on them and also sign PDF forms.
Click the Draw button on the toolbar, then you can use a mouse or a digital pen or just your touchpad to write and draw. To select a color, click the draw button, then choose the color and thickness of the pen.
If you have drawn something wrong, you can always use the erase tool to cancel. If the digital pen has a back button, you can customize it to delete what you drew last.
2]Support for highlighted text
The next one on the line is the highlighted text. If some of the PDF text is large and you want to read it again later, you can highlight it with different colors. To highlight a single word or a full paragraph, select it, then choose a color from the highlight menu. The highlight will also be available in the toolbar during a future update and will allow you to activate the mode directly to avoid using the drawing function.
3]Add text to PDF
Microsoft will also improve the experience of reading text notes already in a PDF and the ability to add text notes to a PDF. It will help you add comments to some of the PDF files. So if you share it with someone else, these comments may include an explanation, or if the document is still in progress, the author can modify it based on your comments. They will work the same way with a little modification compared to Legacy Edge for annotating web pages and eBooks.
That said, for the time being, inking tools for annotating are not available for web pages. It is only available for PDF files. Maybe in the future we will have it too. I hope that the message was easy to follow and that you quickly understood how to use the inking tools on PDF files and highlighted text.