How to prepare and share a PDF for review

Do you have a PDF you want to share for review? Whatever type of document you’re sharing for review, a business document, draft proposal, academic paper, or something else, preparing your PDF first will help streamline the process and make it easier for everyone. Preparing a PDF for review is an essential step in the process of document collaboration — and you can prepare and share your PDFs from within Adobe Acrobat applications. Read on to learn how.

Photo showing the torso and hands of two people at a desk with laptops collaborating on the content on screen.

What you’ll learn

How to prepare a PDF for review
Sending PDFs for review with Adobe Acrobat
Tips to give PDF reviewers to get everyone on the same page
Tracking PDF files that you have shared for review

How to prepare your PDF for review.

To help your reviewers, take the time to prepare your PDF for review before you send it. Make your document as clear and easy as possible to navigate and add comments and annotations before you send it.

Run through these steps to prepare a PDF for review before you share.

Check your PDF file name.
Use a clear file name that reflects the content of your PDF. Use file naming conventions to help your reviewers identify the file, such as a descriptive file name and the inclusion of the date in a standardized format.

Review the content.
Review your content for accuracy, completeness, and clarity. Even if one of your reviewers’ tasks is to proofread, do so yourself first to check for any obvious errors, typos, and inconsistencies before you send it.

Add navigation features.
Make it easy for your reviewers to navigate your PDF file, especially if it has multiple pages. For example —
- Use the Edit tool to add page numbers to headers or footers, the document title, and/or the date.
- Add internal or external links using the Edit tool to help your reviewers quickly access any external sources or other related sections in your PDF.
- From the right navigation pane in Adobe Acrobat, add bookmarks and thumbnails to help your reviewers quickly and smoothly go to different pages.
- Consider creating a table of contents with clickable links if you’re converting a Word file to PDF.

Look for consistent formatting.
Look for consistent formatting in your PDF. When formatting and document layout are consistent, it makes it easier for reviewers to follow your PDF content. Pay attention to fonts, line spacing, margins, and heading styles — make it visually appealing.

Add watermarks to show your document status or ownership.
Use the Edit tool in Adobe Acrobat to add a watermark to your PDF to indicate the status or nature of your PDF contents, and/or ownership. For example, you might indicate the contents are draft, confidential, or insert your company logo.

Consider accessibility.
Make your PDF as accessible as possible for people by using features like alt text for images and ensuring your document has proper heading structures and formatting that screen readers can identify.

Check review and commenting settings and any security measures.
Make sure your PDF has the appropriate settings enabled for the type and level of review you want. For example, allowing comments and annotations only, and/or the ability to edit text. From the Tools in Adobe Acrobat, select “Protect a PDF,” and then “Set Security Properties. You’ll then see these options —
Set your PDF document properties to allow or restrict certain actions, such as printing or editing content, based on your requirements.

Add PDF password-protection, as needed to restrict access to your file.

Review your document properties and metadata.
From the Menu options in Adobe Acrobat, check and update your document properties and metadata, such as title, author, and keywords. You can also access security settings from here.

Reduce your PDF file size, if necessary.
If your PDF file is large, you can compress a PDF file to reduce its size and make it quicker to upload, download, and share.

Test your PDF.
Before you share your PDF for review, check all the features you have added, such as links, bookmarks, and alt text, to ensure they look and function as you intend. If possible, test your PDF on different devices, and check that comments and annotations can be easily added and viewed by reviewers.

Send PDFs for review with Adobe Acrobat.

You can use any Adobe Acrobat application to send and share PDFs with others for review, including —

Adobe Acrobat applications use the Adobe Document Cloud to store your PDF file for others to review. You can share a PDF for comments online or using an application.

You have three options for sharing a PDF file in Adobe Acrobat. You can —

Share PDF documents via a link that anyone can access or only specific people
Send personalized invitations with a message via email, Microsoft Teams, and WhatsApp for reviewers to access the link to your PDF file
Share the PDF as an email attachment.

When you share a PDF for comments online, your reviewers and recipients can then either review your PDF via their web browser online or use their own downloaded Adobe Acrobat applications to review a shared PDF.

Tips to give PDF reviewers.

Get everyone on the same page to review shared PDF files. Give your reviewers some guidance and tips on how you would like your shared PDF reviewed when you send it to them, especially if you have multiple people reviewing and collaborating on one document. For example —

When to highlight text, strikethrough or underline text, and which colours to use.
Your preferences for adding a comment as a sticky note versus adding a text comment within the content.
If you want your reviewers to record audio comments
Using @mentions in comments to draw attention to yourself or other reviewers.

Track the files you have shared for review.

To track the PDF files that you have shared for review, click on Home, and then click “Shared by You.” Once you’ve shared files, you see the name of the files, the date, and when the file was last modified.

Screenshot showing the "Shared by you" folder in Adobe Acrobat online.