You can see highlights, sticky notes, drawing marks, or review comments on screen, but they disappear when you print the PDF. In many cases, the comments are still in the file—the print settings are simply excluding them.
This guide shows how to confirm the annotations exist, print them when you need them, troubleshoot missing markups, and verify the final output before you send or archive it.
Why PDF comments can disappear when printing
PDF comments and annotations are separate from the main page content. Adobe Acrobat provides print options that control whether comments and other markups are included. Adobe documents that the Document option prints the document and form fields without comments, while Document and Markups includes comments. Stamps can also be handled separately.
That means a PDF can look correct on screen but produce a clean printout if the wrong print option is selected.
1. Confirm the comments are actually in the PDF
Before changing printer settings, open the PDF in a desktop PDF viewer that supports annotations and inspect the Comments panel. In Acrobat, the Comments panel can show, sort, and filter comments. Clear any active filters if you suspect comments are being hidden from the list.
- Look for highlights, sticky notes, drawing marks, stamps, or text comments.
- Check more than one page if the review is long.
- If the Comments panel is empty, confirm that you opened the correct file version.
- Save a copy before making further edits if the comments are important.
2. Print the PDF with comments and markups
In current desktop versions of Adobe Acrobat, open the Print dialog and find Comments & Forms. Choose Document and Markups when you want the document content and comments included.
- Open the PDF in Acrobat.
- Choose Print.
- Select the printer you intend to use.
- Open the Comments & Forms menu.
- Choose Document and Markups.
- Review the print preview if your setup provides one.
- Print one test page before printing a long document.
Adobe also provides a Document and Stamps option for cases where you want stamps but not other markups. The exact wording or layout can differ between PDF applications, so use the equivalent setting if you are not using Acrobat.
3. If you need the text of comments, print a comment summary
A small comment icon on the page may not show the full discussion. If you need a readable record of review notes, use a comment summary instead of relying only on the annotation symbols.
Adobe’s current Acrobat documentation says Summarize Comments creates a separate printable PDF containing the comments. Acrobat’s Comments panel also provides options for creating or printing a comment summary.
This is useful when reviewers have written long notes that would be awkward to display directly over the page.
4. Pop-up notes still do not print
Some pop-up notes are intentionally not printed by default. Adobe Reader documentation says you can enable printing of notes and pop-ups from Preferences > Commenting by turning on Print Notes And Pop-ups.
Use this only when you genuinely need the pop-up content on paper. Open pop-ups can cover document content, so test a page first.
5. The comments appear on screen but not in another PDF viewer
Do not assume every viewer handles annotations in exactly the same way. If comments appear in one application but not another, reopen the file in the application used to create or review the comments and check the Comments panel there.
If you are sending the PDF to someone else, tell them that the file contains annotations and, when practical, ask them to use a viewer that supports PDF comments.
6. A browser printout is missing comments
If you opened the PDF inside a web browser, try downloading the file and opening it in a desktop PDF application before printing. Browser PDF viewers may expose different annotation and print controls from desktop Acrobat.
Adobe notes that its comment-summary print option is unavailable when printing from a web browser. Moving to the desktop application also gives you access to the Comments & Forms controls documented above.
Common mistakes
Choosing Document instead of Document and Markups
This is one of the simplest causes. The PDF itself may be fine; the print job is excluding the comments.
Assuming every visible note will print automatically
Annotations can be visible during review without being included in the default print output. Check the print setting rather than judging from the screen alone.
Printing a long document without a test page
Print one representative page containing several annotation types first. It is faster to catch a missing-comments problem on one page than after a full print run.
Flattening or converting before preserving the original
If you use another workflow to turn annotations into ordinary page content, keep the original annotated PDF. Flattening can make later editing or review harder, and the result may no longer behave like editable comments.
Troubleshooting when Document and Markups still does not work
- Save the PDF locally and reopen it before printing.
- Check the Comments panel and clear comment filters.
- Try a page that definitely contains a visible annotation.
- Check whether the missing item is a comment, stamp, form field, or pop-up note; Acrobat has different print choices for some of these.
- Update your PDF application if its print dialog or annotation behavior appears broken.
- If the problem occurs only with one printer, test by printing to another available printer or to a PDF output if your approved workflow allows it.
How to verify the result
Do not stop at a successful print command. Compare the output with the reviewed PDF.
- Check a page with a highlight.
- Check a page with a sticky note or drawing markup.
- Check stamps separately if the file uses them.
- Confirm that page content has not been hidden by open pop-up notes.
- If you created a new PDF output, reopen it and inspect the same pages.
If you created a second PDF version and need to inspect whether visible page content changed, the RevifyHub Compare PDF tool can be a useful additional check. It should complement—not replace—a manual review of comments and annotations.
When a clean printout is actually correct
Sometimes the goal is to print the final document without reviewer notes. In that case, choosing a document-only print option is appropriate. The important step is to decide deliberately whether the comments belong in the output rather than assuming the printout will match the review view.
Authoritative references
Adobe’s current documentation explains the Comments & Forms print choices, including Document, Document and Markups, Document and Stamps, and comment summaries. See Adobe Acrobat: Print comments and Adobe Acrobat: View comments.