How to Redline a PDF? (Step by Step Guide)

Redline is a feature often found in Word documents when working on different versions and multiple contributors. It plays a crucial role in contract negotiations. It entails revising the wording of a draft document to ensure the contract meets the needs of all parties and adheres to legal standards. In the past, this process was time-consuming and required extensive use of red ink, which is how the term ‘redlining’ originated. Now, you can leave the red pen behind. With digital PDFs, redlining documents before signing has become quick and effortless.

Since PDF is a widely accepted document format, redline feature is highly anticipated in it for higher productivity but most users cannot find this feature in their PDF tools.

So, in this article we will share 3 proven ways with complete guides on how to redline a PDF.

Part 1. Can You Redline a PDF?

Yes, most PDF tools provide a strikethrough feature which puts a red line through the contents of a PDF document. Originally, in Word documents when you remove some content and add new in its place the original content gets redlined instead of being permanently removed so other contributors can review it.

On the other hand, in a PDF document you have to do it manually by first adding redline through strikethrough feature and then adding new content next to it. Hence, the final result is the same as in Word but with a slightly different process.

Part 2. How to Redline a PDF Document? (3 Ways)

So, if you want to redline a PDF document then we have 3 proven ways that will work for you regardless of your devices and OS.

Way 1. How to Redline a PDF on Windows and Mac With UPDF?

The first tool of choice for redlining a PDF document is UPDF. UPDF is a PDF editing suite with every feature that you require for editing your PDF documents and a lot more. In fact, it is the best tool to redline your PDFs whether you are on Windows, MacOS, iOS, or Android since it works flawlessly on all of them. The best part about UPDF is that you can redline the old content and add new content by using its Edit PDF features.

Apart from that, UPDF offers a bunch of annotation features including strikethrough, notes, comments, stickers, etc. that you can use to keep track of changes made to different revisions and versions of your PDFs. Additionally, you get features like underlining, or adding a squiggly line for text. UPDF not only takes care of your redlining requirements but also brings many more features so you must download and give it a try.

Step 1: Launch UPDF on PC by using desktop icon and click "Open File" to open PDF document that you want to redline in reader view.

Step 2: Click "Comment" from left menu and select a text by highlighting it with the click of cursor. A pop-up menu will show different tools including a "Strikethrough" button. Click it and the text will be redlined. You also get the option to pick from different colors for the Strikethrough feature. An alternative method is to first click "Strikethrough" button from top bar and then selecting text with click and hold of your cursor.

Step 3: Now, you can click on the "Sticky Note" to add new contents or go to "Edit PDF"at the left side panel, double click on the text with redline and add new contents after the ones with redline.

While UPDF makes it this easy to redline PDFs, it can assist you in many other tasks with its other features as listed below:

• UPDF AI helps you translate, summarize, review, and rewrite content in PDF documents.
• UPDF Cloud keeps your PDFs organized in dedicated storage and synchronizes all your docs across your devices
• UPDF OCR works with over 99% accuracy for 38 different languages and makes scanned docs and images editable
• UPDF gives complete PDF editing experience with editing text, images, and links
• UPDF makes it easy to organize, merge, and split PDF documents and pages.
• UPDF offers read along and several similar features.
• UPDF AI helps you generate mind map to visualize your PDF content and ideas, making it easy to explore and connect key concepts across your documents.

Download UPDF now to get access to all these and many other features by purchasing UPDF Pro. Learn more about functionalities of UPDF from this Laptopmedia review.

If you are interested in watching the video on how to annotate a PDF, here is the video for you.

Also Read: How to Redline a Contract in PDF/Word? (Step by Step)

Way 2. How to Redline a PDF on Your Phone With UPDF?

If you don't have a computer nearby, you can choose to redline PDF on your phone, whether iOS or Android, which is very convenient. Here are the specific steps:

Step 1: Download and install the UPDF app on your phone, then open it. Click the “+” option to import the PDF file you want to edit from your device.

Step 2: In the opened PDF interface, find the toolbar on the screen, select the pen icon, and then click “Markup”.

Step 3: Select “Strikethrough”, and then use your finger to drag and draw the redline mark in the corresponding area of the PDF. You can adjust the color and width of the line for the areas that need marking.

Way 3. Redline Scanned PDF Using UPDF

Even scanned PDFs can be redlined in UPDF! Just note that scanned documents require OCR (Optical Character Recognition) processing first to enable text markup.

Here’s how to redline a scanned PDF in UPDF:

​Step 1: Launch UPDF and import your scanned PDF. Select the "​OCR" tool on the right sidebar. Choose the "Document Language" and click ​"Perform OCR"—UPDF will convert the scanned PDF to selectable/editable text.

Step 2: Once OCR completes, UPDF will open the editable version in new tab automatically. Now, simply follow the steps as mentioned in ​Way 1 to redline your PDF!

Conclusion

With 3 working ways on how to redline a PDF we hope that you can easily use this amazing feature when reviewing and editing a PDF to prevent the old content from getting deleted. In this way, you can be more productive, and your documents will contain much better information. The best tool for utilizing this feature that you can download on all devices for seamless performance is UPDF. With its in-depth editing features and useful AI features, working on PDFs will be much more productive.