# PDFAnnotations > PDFAnnotations is a local-first, browser-based toolkit for extracting, organizing, exporting, converting, and removing PDF annotations, plus exporting comments from DOCX files. Files are processed locally in the browser with WebAssembly and are not uploaded to a processing server. PDFAnnotations is designed for researchers, students, legal and editorial reviewers, analysts, and anyone who needs to turn document annotations into reusable structured data or clean documents. Core strengths: - Local-first processing: PDF and DOCX files are processed in the browser; no file upload is required for the supported workflows. - Annotation extraction: highlights, comments/sticky notes, underlines, wavy lines, and strikeouts, with available metadata such as page, author, color, and date. - Review and organization: view, search, edit, delete, filter, sort, group, tag, and selectively export supported annotations in the Workspace. - Knowledge export: Markdown, CSV, plain text, Obsidian, Notion, Excel, JSON, ZIP, AI Context, and RAG-oriented JSON depending on the tool and plan. - Cleanup: remove all supported PDF annotations or selectively remove highlights or comments while preserving the underlying page content. - Interchange formats: parse XFDF and XML FDF annotation data locally in the browser. - Word comments: extract comments from modern `.docx` files locally, including available comment ID, author, date, reliable resolved status, comment text, and anchor text. ## Primary Tools - [PDF Annotation Extractor & Exporter](https://pdfannotations.com/): Extract PDF highlights, comments, sticky notes, underlines, wavy lines, and strikeouts; review them and export the results. Markdown, CSV, and plain text are available in the free tier; advanced export formats and organization features are available in Pro. - [PDF Highlight Extractor](https://pdfannotations.com/export-pdf-highlights/): Extract highlighted passages from PDFs, with available color and page information. Supports Markdown, CSV, plain text, and advanced formats through Pro. - [PDF Comment Exporter](https://pdfannotations.com/export-pdf-comments/): Extract PDF comments, sticky notes, and reply data into structured output. Useful for legal review, editorial feedback, and collaborative document review. - [Full PDF Annotation Exporter](https://pdfannotations.com/export-pdf-annotations/): Export the full supported annotation layer, including highlights, comments/sticky notes, underlines, wavy lines, and strikeouts, to reusable structured formats. ## PDF Cleanup Tools - [PDF Annotation Remover](https://pdfannotations.com/pdf-annotation-remover/): Remove all supported PDF annotations from a clean copy. Includes quick removal and customizable removal by annotation type, author, page, or comment thread; Pro supports batch removal for multiple PDFs. - [PDF Highlight Remover](https://pdfannotations.com/pdf-highlight-remover/): Remove selected highlight annotations while keeping the underlying page text intact. Useful when other annotations should remain. - [PDF Comment Remover](https://pdfannotations.com/pdf-comment-remover/): Remove PDF comments and related comment-thread objects while preserving the rest of the document markup. Useful for preparing contracts, reports, and drafts for sharing. ## Word Comments - [Word Comments Exporter](https://pdfannotations.com/export-word-comments/): Extract comments from standard `.docx` files locally in the browser. Search comments and filter by author or reliably stored resolved status, then export CSV, Markdown, TXT, Excel, JSON, or custom templates depending on plan. V1 does not infer Word page numbers and does not extract Track Changes or legacy `.doc` files directly. - [Guide: Export Word Comments to Excel](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/export-word-comments-to-excel/): Explains DOCX comment data, export options, spreadsheet columns, pagination limitations, and local-browser workflows. ## Format Converters - [XFDF Annotation Converter](https://pdfannotations.com/xfdf-annotation-converter/): Convert Acrobat-exported XFDF annotations to Markdown, CSV, plain text, Excel, Obsidian, Notion, JSON, and AI-oriented output depending on plan. Processes XFDF locally in the browser. - [FDF Annotation Converter](https://pdfannotations.com/fdf-annotation-converter/): Convert XML FDF annotation data to Markdown, CSV, and plain text, with advanced formats available in Pro. Traditional binary FDF is not supported directly and should first be re-exported as XFDF or XML FDF. ## Workspace - [Annotation Workspace](https://pdfannotations.com/workspace/): Shared browser workspace for PDF and Word annotation workflows. Provides a central place to review annotation data and access export, removal, and conversion tools. Local processing is used for supported file operations. The Workspace supports workflows such as: - Search and review extracted annotations. - Filter by annotation type, color, author, page, or tag when available. - Sort and group annotations by page, type, author, color, or file. - Edit or delete extracted annotation records before export. - Process multiple files in batch with Pro. - Back up and restore the workspace with Pro. ## Export Formats - Markdown: generic plain-text notes suitable for Markdown editors and knowledge-management workflows. - CSV: free tabular export for Excel, Google Sheets, Airtable, and similar tools. - Plain Text: lightweight unformatted output. - Obsidian: Pro export with callouts and available page/color/link metadata. - Notion: Pro output formatted for Notion databases. - Excel: Pro `.xlsx` workbook export. - JSON: Pro structured annotation data for automation and developer workflows. - ZIP: Pro bundled export for multi-format workflows. - AI Context: Pro Markdown-oriented output for LLM prompting and knowledge workflows. - RAG JSON: Pro structured output intended for downstream vector database or retrieval-augmented generation pipelines. Metadata availability depends on what the source document actually stores. PDFAnnotations does not invent missing author, date, color, status, or other metadata. ## Supported Annotation Data The PDF extraction tools support standard on-page annotation data including highlights, comments/sticky notes, underlines, wavy/squiggly lines, and strikeouts. Available page, author, color, date, selected text, and reply/thread information is preserved when present in the source. The full PDF exporter focuses on annotation-layer data rather than PDF outline bookmarks. Scanned image-only PDFs without a text layer require OCR before text extraction can work reliably. ## Privacy & Processing - PDF and DOCX processing occurs locally in the browser using WebAssembly for supported workflows. - Files are not uploaded to PDFAnnotations or a third-party processing server for these local workflows. - No account is required for the basic extraction workflow. - After the application has loaded, supported extraction workflows can continue offline. Local processing is a core architectural characteristic of PDFAnnotations and is particularly relevant for confidential research papers, contracts, drafts, institutional documents, and internal reports. ## Pricing - [Pricing](https://pdfannotations.com/pricing/): Free tier includes up to 3 PDFs per day, PDF highlight/comment/sticky-note extraction, and Markdown, CSV, and plain-text export. - Pro includes unlimited daily PDF extraction, advanced filters, collections, batch processing, Obsidian, Notion, Excel, JSON, ZIP, custom templates, and workspace backup/restore. - A 24-hour Pro pass is available for users who need advanced features for a single day. ## Resources - [Guides & Tutorials](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/): Practical workflows for PDF annotations, Word comments, XFDF, Obsidian, AI/RAG, academic research, legal review, and related document workflows. - [Compare PDF Tools](https://pdfannotations.com/compare/): Comparisons with tools and workflows including Adobe Acrobat, Readwise, and Zotero-oriented PDF annotation export. - [What Is…? Reference Guides](https://pdfannotations.com/what-is/): Plain-language explanations of PDF annotation formats, FDF, XFDF, and related terminology. ### Recommended Guides - [PDF Annotations to AI/RAG: Export for ChatGPT & LLMs](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/pdf-annotations-to-ai-rag/): Export annotations into AI Context Markdown or RAG-oriented JSON for downstream LLM and retrieval workflows. - [How to Export XFDF Annotations from Adobe Acrobat](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/how-to-export-xfdf-annotations/): Export annotations from Acrobat as XFDF and convert them locally into reusable formats. - [XFDF to Obsidian Workflow](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/xfdf-to-obsidian-workflow/): Convert Acrobat XFDF data into Obsidian-ready Markdown with callouts, frontmatter, and page references. - [Academic Literature Review PDF Workflow](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/academic-literature-review-pdf/): Build a repeatable research workflow around annotated scholarly PDFs. - [Legal Contract Redlining PDF Workflow](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/legal-contract-redlining-pdf/): Use PDF comments and annotation extraction/removal for contract review workflows. - [Export Word Comments to Excel](https://pdfannotations.com/guides/export-word-comments-to-excel/): Compare VBA, Word add-ins, and browser-local DOCX comment extraction. ## Comparisons - [Adobe Acrobat Alternative](https://pdfannotations.com/compare/adobe-acrobat-alternative/): Focuses on exporting Acrobat-created annotations into Markdown, Obsidian, Notion, CSV, JSON, and other structured formats. - [Readwise Alternative for PDF Highlights](https://pdfannotations.com/compare/readwise-alternative/): Compares local PDF annotation extraction with cloud-based reading workflows. - [Zotero PDF Export Alternative](https://pdfannotations.com/compare/zotero-pdf-export-alternative/): Compares PDF annotation export workflows for Zotero users. ## Important Limitations - PDFAnnotations extracts existing annotation data; it is not a PDF annotation authoring/editor replacement for applications such as Adobe Acrobat. - Scanned PDFs without a text layer are not directly supported for text extraction unless OCR is performed first. - Word comments support standard `.docx` input in V1; legacy `.doc`, Track Changes, Microsoft 365 version history, OCR, and inferred page numbers are not extracted. - Traditional binary FDF is not accepted directly by the FDF converter; re-export it as XFDF or XML FDF first. - Metadata is reported only when it can be determined reliably from the source file. ## About PDFAnnotations is a local-first PDF annotation extraction and document-review toolkit focused on privacy, structured exports, and practical reading/review workflows. The site provides browser tools rather than a cloud document-storage service. - [Home](https://pdfannotations.com/) - [Workspace](https://pdfannotations.com/workspace/) - [Pricing](https://pdfannotations.com/pricing/)