Microsoft Edge Is Getting a Key Improvement to Its PDF Annotating Experience

Microsoft launched its new Chromium-based Edge browser earlier this year, and it’s been getting a fair amount of improvements over the last few weeks.

The company is releasing a new update to Edge for those on the dev channel this week, and it brings a key improvement to the PDF annotating experience.

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Right now, when you use the “draw” feature for PDFs on the new Edge browser, you can’t select the color of the ink or change the size of the pen. It’s a very limited experience that renders the feature almost useless. That’s changing now, though.

With build 82.0.439.1 of the new Microsoft Edge browser, Microsoft is adding the ability to change the size of the pen, and also choose from a bunch of different colors when you are annotating PDFs. It’s a really small but key improvement that I imagine would be really appreciated by a lot of people.

The new update also comes with some other new features, including:

  • Added a service to suggest an address to try when a navigation to a website fails due to a typo in the address.
  • Added support for syncing Tracking Prevention exception settings.
  • Added a button in Settings to make Edge the Default Browser.

Just a reminder, these new features are only available on the dev channel for now, and they will have to go through the beta channel before they are available for the stable version of the new Edge.

As per usual, there are a number of other new minor improvements available with the latest update, and you can checkout the full changelog here.

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Conversation 6 comments

  • tbtalbot

    Premium Member
    05 March, 2020 - 6:03 am

    <p>This is great news. Edge is so much better at signing and annotating PDFs than Acrobat using the pen, that I was really crippled without this feature working to its full potential. I even kept the old edge on one of my machines because of this. The new edge inking was very limited and the input was crude as well, lacking input smoothing.</p>

  • red77star

    05 March, 2020 - 11:20 am

    <p>Microsoft Edge is a solid browser. It does not mean it will translate to any meaningful market share in the future however it is really really good version of Chromium. I like it and I use it, it is time to say goodbye to IE11 and old Edge for good. I use Chrome, Safari, Chromium, Brave, Opera and Firefox have to test my web applications in all browsers. My main to go browser is new Edge.</p>

  • kcarson97404

    Premium Member
    05 March, 2020 - 12:03 pm

    <p>The old Edge had a much better PDF reading experience, to the point where I made it my default PDF reader. The new Edge is so limited in its PDF reading capacity that I've had to go find a different PDF reader. I am anxious to see Microsoft get the PDF reading back to the same level as the old Edge. </p>

  • docpaul

    05 March, 2020 - 2:14 pm

    <p>What's your wallpaper? </p>

  • bleeman

    Premium Member
    05 March, 2020 - 4:59 pm

    <p>While I appreciate the PDF support in Edge, I purchased Drawboard PDF from the Microsoft store during one of their sales and have really liked the product. It works very well, has excellent pen support and even supports the Microsoft Dial. Overall a nice product and reasonably priced.</p>

  • judewong

    06 March, 2020 - 12:35 am

    <p>The noting taking features in Edge Chromium still can't match those in Edge Classic in terms of performance and end-user experience. Am keeping Edge Classic for note taking still.</p>

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