Can you make comments private?

[Tech-nol]

Can you make comments private? i.e I want to send PDF to A&B via the cloud, but I don't want A to see B comments and vice versa. Is this doable? 
So is there no way to 'segregate' participants? I am wanting to share a file with people who I do not want to be able to see other participants' comments. So what is the point of sharing I hear you ask? I want to share with internal staff, but only want external invitees to comment/mark up without seeing the internal discussion about what they have to say, as it may be 'sensitive'. We don't want 2 versions of the document, one internal and one external. We just want to have more control over what information is available to read.

[AnandSri · Accepted solution]

Hi there!

I hope you are doing well.

I believe you are referring to a shared review initiated via Document Cloud web or Adobe Acrobat. When its a shared review, then comments can't be done privately. Everyone (receivers) would be participating in this shared review and comments would be seen by all. Shared reviews are the most collaborative form of review because participants can read and reply to the comments of other participants.

To know more about Shared review and commenting, please take help from these articles:
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/how-to/send-share-pdf-file-review.html 
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/participating-pdf-review.html 

Hope this answers your question.

Thanks,
Anand Sri.

[AnandSri · Accepted solution]

Hello @Smith550

I hope you are doing well, and thank you for reaching out.

Currently, Acrobat does not support role-based or private comments within the same shared file. All comments added to a shared review are visible to everyone who has access to that document. You can use the Acrobat Wish form to raise a feature request with the product team.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[AnandSri · Accepted solution]

Hi there!

I hope you are doing well.

I believe you are referring to a shared review initiated via Document Cloud web or Adobe Acrobat. When its a shared review, then comments can't be done privately. Everyone (receivers) would be participating in this shared review and comments would be seen by all. Shared reviews are the most collaborative form of review because participants can read and reply to the comments of other participants.

To know more about Shared review and commenting, please take help from these articles:
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/how-to/send-share-pdf-file-review.html 
https://helpx.adobe.com/acrobat/using/participating-pdf-review.html 

Hope this answers your question.

Thanks,
Anand Sri.

[Smith550]

That’s a very valid use case, especially when dealing with sensitive internal feedback. Unfortunately, most document collaboration tools don’t currently support truly private or role-based comments within the same shared file. Having comment visibility controls (internal vs external) would be incredibly useful and would avoid the need for maintaining multiple versions of the same document.

[AnandSri · Accepted solution]

Hello @Smith550

I hope you are doing well, and thank you for reaching out.

Currently, Acrobat does not support role-based or private comments within the same shared file. All comments added to a shared review are visible to everyone who has access to that document. You can use the Acrobat Wish form to raise a feature request with the product team.

Thanks,

Anand Sri.

[Dave Creamer of IDEAS · Accepted solution]

This is what I do when wanting "private" comments:

Turn off Share for Review using Adobe's cloud storage under the Review preference,  you will activate the older method of sharing files for commenting. 

You can then send your PDF via email to the reviewers at once

When they get the email, they can double-click the attachment. 

They can review it, make comments, and click the "Send Comments" button (added due to the Send process). 

This will return only the .fdf comment data, not the entire PDF.

When you get there return email, simply double-click on the attachement. As long as you have moved or renamed the original PDF, the comments will be added to your "master" PDF.

Because everyone receives a separate PDF, nobody sees the other comments except you.

Another bonus is that you can use the Tracker to add people to the review and to respond to everyone you sent the PDF to (for example, to remind them of the deadline).

You should test this with a small group to make sure it works the way you want.