Guide · PDF

How to annotate a PDF together in a Teams meeting

Reviewing a PDF in a meeting usually means one person shares their screen and everyone else says “scroll down a bit”. There are two ways to let the whole meeting mark it up instead, and they keep the marks in very different places.

Option 1: draw over a screen share

Teams has built-in annotation for screen sharing. The presenter opens the PDF, shares their screen, and turns on annotation; other participants can then draw on top of what is being shared.

It needs no extra app, and for a quick “this bit here” it is often enough. But the marks sit on top of a picture of the presenter’s screen, not inside the PDF. Everyone sees only the part of the document the presenter has chosen to show, and what you keep afterwards is at best a Whiteboard snapshot rather than a marked-up copy of the file.

Option 2: annotate the PDF itself

Annoteer opens the PDF inside the meeting, in the side panel or on the shared stage, and everyone draws on the document itself. Each mark is attached to the page it was drawn on, so it stays put as people zoom and move between pages.

In a Teams meeting, select Apps (or +) and add Annoteer.
Choose the PDF. It opens for the meeting; nobody needs to share their screen.
Pick a tool and mark it up: freehand, highlight, text, sticky notes, rectangles, ellipses, triangles, lines and arrows. Selecting text in the PDF highlights it.
Want everyone on the same page? Press Present, and participants who follow you turn pages with you. Anyone can stop following and read ahead on their own.
When you are done, download the PDF with every participant’s annotations burned in.

Where it runs. Teams on Windows, macOS and the web has the full feature set. On Teams mobile, participants can annotate a document someone else has opened, but opening files and downloading the annotated copy are desktop and web only. Guests who join through Microsoft’s anonymous meeting link cannot load meeting apps at all.

Turn the reviewed PDF into data

Review meetings often end with someone copying figures, actions or a table out of the PDF. Annoteer’s Extract button reads the open document and returns it as Markdown, JSON, CSV or plain text, including long PDFs. The document is sent for extraction only when someone presses the button.

Which one to use

A quick pointer during a call: screen-share annotation is fine.
A review where the feedback is the point — a drawing, a contract, a report that will be revised — annotate the document, so the marks are still on the right page when someone sits down to make the changes.

Try it on your next review

Every organisation starts with a 14-day trial with no credit card. Add Annoteer from Microsoft Marketplace, then open it from the Apps button in your next Teams meeting.