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New Participant
May 10, 2019
Answered

Delete all comments on a PDF at once

  • May 10, 2019
  • 7 replies
  • 329542 views

I would like to add comments on a PDF for team use and proofing.

When the PDF is final, I would like the option to delete all comments on all pages and save as a final version for client, without the client seeing any of the comments.

Correct answer Karl Heinz Kremer

Not with one click but with just a few clicks: When you look at the list of comments, go to the last one and select it, then scroll up to the first one, hold down the shift key and select the first comment. This should select all comments. You can now delete them by right-clicking on one and selecting "Delete" from the menu. This should also work by selecting the first comment first, holding down the shift key and selecting the last comment, but I've had better luck with the process I described first.

You can also use the "PDF Optimizer" by saving the document as an optimized PDF (only possible in Acrobat Pro). Then from the different options you can select, make sure that only "Discard User Data>Discard all comments, form and multimedia" is selected  (otherwise, more information may be removed from your document).

7 replies

New Participant
December 4, 2024

You can also use a little Windows app called BatchPurifier to remove all comments at once, from a single PDF or from a bunch of PDFs in batch. It's a standalone app, so does not relies on Adobe Acrobat.

New Participant
January 7, 2022

I know other people have already offered solutions, but the easiest way to do this in my oppinion is to just open the pdf in google chrome and print to pdf.

 

This will quickly strip all comments and optimize a new pdf.

JR Boulay
Adobe Expert
January 8, 2022
Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
New Participant
January 10, 2022

Interesting link.

 

Ive never personally seen any artifacts from "refrying" (new term I learned from your link) but I understand how that could happen.

 

In the context of this commenters question it seemed to be the easiest and fastest alternative. Im sure if the pdf didnt generate correctly then they would use any of the other options described in this thread. 

 

Thanks for letting me know the pitfalls of this method though. I will definately use this method more cautiously now.

New Participant
November 6, 2020

I open the PDF and mine had 7550 comments in it. (Autocad text). Seriously slow and bogged down. Then I print to PDF and the new one doesnt have the comments.

JR Boulay
Adobe Expert
April 26, 2021
Acrobate du PDF, InDesigner et Photoshopographe
New Participant
July 19, 2020

1. Open the yellow comment tap on the right side.

2. Click the first comment.

3. Press Shift + End on your keyboard.

4. Press Delete on your keyboard.

New Participant
October 2, 2020

THANK YOU! Seriously, bless you for providing a simple, direct, and effective solution. I had to sign up just to let you know, haha.

ls_rbls
Adobe Expert
December 26, 2019

Hi, 

 

++Adding to this discussion, I was also trying to help another user recently who  wasn't able to delete any of the comments with annotations in his PDF.

 

As I was trying all the suggestions offered in this thread with no success, I noticed that in the PDF that  he shared with me for review the comments weren't trated as comments fields per se.

 

The comments would work allowing a user to add more annotations to each comment field  and then save the file normally with the changes.

 

However, if the user of the form wanted to delete the comments the delete options would appear greyed out It would simply not allow to use any delete method on them. I suspect that the PDF file that he was using was probably a refried PDF that was saved as a postscript file or to another file format and then converted back to PDF.

 

So as a work around solution, you will be able, however, to get rid of all of these comments if you go to Edit, and select "Edit Text & Images".

 

When you do this, you will noticie that if you right-click on each  comment it will be treated as a note and not as a comment field per se. So If you right-click on the annotation it will popup a context menu with two options "Open Sticky Note" or "Delete Sticky Note".

 

If you ever run into this type of issue, choosing "Delete Sticky Note" resolves this particular problem. 

 

New Participant
December 7, 2021

I have been racking my brain and scouring support channels, trying to find a solution for this. Thank you for sharing this information. This helped a ton!

ls_rbls
Adobe Expert
December 8, 2021

You're welcome

try67
Adobe Expert
May 10, 2019

It can also be done using a single click by creating a script that does it, assigning it to a toolbar button and then adding that button to the toolbar.

kelseyb2535
New Participant
May 18, 2019

How can I create the script?

try67
Adobe Expert
May 18, 2019

That is a bit more complicated, especially the part where it adds a new menu item. It also requires installing the script file into a specific folder on the local machine.

Karl Heinz  Kremer
Karl Heinz KremerCorrect answer
Adobe Expert
May 10, 2019

Not with one click but with just a few clicks: When you look at the list of comments, go to the last one and select it, then scroll up to the first one, hold down the shift key and select the first comment. This should select all comments. You can now delete them by right-clicking on one and selecting "Delete" from the menu. This should also work by selecting the first comment first, holding down the shift key and selecting the last comment, but I've had better luck with the process I described first.

You can also use the "PDF Optimizer" by saving the document as an optimized PDF (only possible in Acrobat Pro). Then from the different options you can select, make sure that only "Discard User Data>Discard all comments, form and multimedia" is selected  (otherwise, more information may be removed from your document).

New Participant
July 24, 2020

Thank you sir!