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Files guide

Writing on a PDF or editing a text file

No need to download, edit and upload again: it all happens inside Files, and every save becomes a new version (the previous one stays).

Writing on a PDF

To annotate a PDF:

  1. Right-click on the file.
  2. Hover over «Edit» and choose «Annotate PDF».
  3. The PDF opens full screen with the tools at the top: pen, highlighter, text, rectangle, circle, arrow, line and eraser. Next to them you pick the colour, the thickness and the transparency.
  4. Save with Ctrl+S (on a Mac Cmd+S). To undo, Ctrl+Z.

The same «Edit» submenu has two more entries for PDFs, and they do different things:

  • «Edit PDF» changes the text of the document, it does not draw on it. If the PDF already has annotations the entry is greyed out: rewriting the text would move or ruin them, signatures and stamps included.
  • «Fill in the form» appears when the PDF is a form with fields to fill in: it recognises them and fills them as real fields — you don’t write over them by hand.

Editing a text file

Right-click → «Edit» → «Open in the text editor». It works for text, code, JSON, Markdown, CSV and the like. The editor has line numbers, search (Ctrl+F) and replace (Ctrl+H); you save with Ctrl+S.

⚠️ While you are editing, the file is yours

As soon as you open it, the file is locked: the others see the padlock on the row and cannot change it. That is what stops two people writing over each other’s work. The lock lifts when you close.

If what you need is to work together, the right place is «Edit online» on Office documents: there several people are inside at once.

If the entries aren’t there

They are separate permissions on the folder — «Edit PDF», «Fill in PDF forms», «Text editor», «Annotate PDF»: you may have one and not the others. To check, click the «Your access» chip in the bar above the list, on the left.

Questions this guide answers

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