Microsoft Edge PDF Reader is getting text notes, digital signatures, and more

Microsoft has announced this morning a slew of new features coming to the built-in PDF Reader in Microsoft Edge, with most of them rolling out in the coming months. In a recent blog post, Microsoft noted that the company is currently working on a bunch of new features including Table of Contents, Highlight mode, Text notes, Digital signatures, as well as a smoother scroll experience and accessibility improvements.

In addition to the aforementioned features, Microsoft Edge’s PDF Reader is also getting the ability to view the sensitivity labels of protected pdf files. Here is a quick look at what’s to come for the new Microsoft Edge browser:

• Smoother scroll experience: We are bringing the smooth scroll of Legacy Edge to the modern browser.
• Table of Contents: You will soon be able to view the contents of PDF files and navigate through the file with the same.
• Highlight mode: In this mode, you will be able to create highlights directly by selecting text, without the need of clicking on a highlight button.
• Text notes: With this, you will be able to add their own notes to text in PDF files. These notes will travel with the PDF.
• Protected PDF files: Microsoft Information Protection adds a layer of security to your documents. It ensures that only the users who have certain permissions as view, copy, annotate can take those actions on the file. Hence, no matter where the document goes, the data of your organization remains secure.
  • Viewing labels of protected files: You will soon be able to view the sensitivity labels
  • Viewing MIP files protected in other tenants: This will enable you to view the files protected in other organizations, or in other tenants in the organization.
• Digital signatures: View and validate certificate based Digital signatures on signed files.
• Accessibility improvements: With this, you will be able to fill PDF forms using screen readers, and navigate through PDF documents using caret mode.

Since Microsoft released the first Edge Insider builds last year, it’s good to see that the browser is getting new features on both Mac and Windows. Again, it will take sometime before it happens, but it’s likely that you will see all these features in one of the preview builds (Canary and Dev Channels) that are available for Microsoft Edge soon.