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How to Change the Author Name for Comments in Adobe Acrobat

Quick Tips
  • You can change the Author name from Adobe Acrobat Preferences.
  • It is possible to bulk edit an Author’s name after sorting.
  • Set properties to default to a specific author name.

Method 1. Update Comment Preferences

Adobe Acrobat Commenting section allows you to use the logged-in user as the author’s name. It is useful when many people edit the document, and you want to ensure each is captured in the details.

Step 1: Open the PDF document in which you want to update the comment preferences or add a comment.

Step 2: After opening the PDF, click the Edit tab at the top left and select Preferences from the menu.

Open Acrobat Preferences

Step 3: From the Preferences window, click Commenting from the Categories menu.

Step 4: Under the Making Comments section, check the box for Always use Log-in Name for Author name option and save the changes.

Making Commentrs section

Method 2. Update Comment Properties in Adobe Acrobat

You can update the comment properties to edit comments on a particular PDF document.

Step 1: Click the Comment icon from the Acrobat’s toolbar to the right on a PDF.

Step 2: Type a comment in a preferred section of your PDF and click Post.

Post a comment in PDF file

Step 3: Click the three horizontal dots menu on the comment box and select Properties.

Open properties of a comment

Step 4: Select the General tab of the Sticky Note Properties dialog box.

Sticky Notes Properties Author name

Step 5: In the Author field, enter a new name, tick the Make Properties Default box, and click OK to save your changes.

Make properties default

Method 3. Change the Author Name for Existing Comments in Adobe Acrobat

Step 1: Open the PDF. Click the Comment icon on the Adobe Acrobat toolbar at the right, which will show all comments on the file.

Comment section

Step 2: Click the Sort icon and select Author.

Sort by author name

Step 3: Select the first comment with the Author name you want to edit, then hold down the Shift button on your keyboard while you select the other comments by the same author.

Select multiple comments.

Step 4: On one of the selected comment boxes, right-click and select Properties.

Edit properties of multiple comments

Step 5: Select the General tab of the Sticky Note Properties dialog box.

Edit author name of multiple comments

Step 6: In the Author field, enter a new name and click OK to save your changes.

Set author name

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Last updated on 03 September, 2024

1 Comment

  1. Somehow I have managed to lock some of the comments whose name I want to change, but not all of them, so I can’t do a global change. If I go one by one (there are over 200 of them…), I can change the ones that aren’t locked, but not the ones that are. How do I easily find the ones that are locked and unlock them? The “Make this setting default” box is not checked on any of them, so there’s nothing to uncheck.

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