Compare the Top PDF Annotators for Linux as of October 2026

What are PDF Annotators for Linux?

PDF annotation tools are pieces of software designed to allow users to add notes and highlight text on PDF documents. They can be used by students or professionals to mark up documents, make comments, and organize information in an intuitive way. Annotations may also include drawing shapes or adding images. The annotations can then be saved with the document for easy sharing and future reference. Compare and read user reviews of the best PDF Annotators for Linux currently available using the table below. This list is updated regularly.

  • 1
    Apryse PDF SDK
    Apryse (formerly PDFTron) powers the future of document technology. We help businesses, developers, and enterprises handle documents with unmatched speed, accuracy, and security. Whether running in secure server environments or delivering seamless web-based experiences, Apryse makes document workflows smarter and easier. With Apryse, you can: Embed powerful document features directly into your apps — from viewing and editing to collaboration and compliance. Run at enterprise scale on secure server infrastructure, ensuring reliability without cloud dependencies. Deliver seamless in-browser document experiences with responsive, accessible, and feature-rich web capabilities. Trusted globally, Apryse empowers organizations to simplify operations, enhance productivity, and create exceptional document experiences.
    Starting Price: 0.00
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  • 2
    Nutrient SDK
    Nutrient SDK brings in-app PDF annotation and markup to document review, so users mark it up where it lives instead of exporting files to a separate review tool. Developers, product managers, and document review teams use it for contract and compliance review, board packs, blueprint and engineering markup, and approval workflows. It offers more than 15 spec-compliant annotation types, including highlights, underlines, strikeouts, ink, shapes, stamps, sticky notes, and free text, that render consistently across web, mobile, and desktop. Threaded comments attach to annotations, record author and time, and can be resolved or reopened, while permissions control who can view, comment on, or edit annotations. Teams can customize colors, toolbars, and stamps, query and manage annotations through the API, and export to XFDF for other PDF tools or Instant JSON for syncing across users and devices.
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  • 3
    RAD PDF

    RAD PDF

    Red Software

    Add a fully functional PDF editor to your ASP.NET website in minutes! Compatible with 99% of desktop & mobile browsers, from Internet Explorer 6 through the latest iOS Safari release, RAD PDF simply works. No plugins or other software needed. RAD PDF natively supports the most commonly used PDF features. Beyond a PDF reader, RAD PDF equips web applications with a browser-based PDF editor & PDF annotator. Features not even available in Adobe Acrobat Reader can be used to provide advanced PDF functionality. By enabling PDF form filling, PDF redaction, & PDF signing directly in the web browser, RAD PDF users can utilize PDF features without worrying about having the right platform or software installed! Allow your app to design new PDF forms, protect content, sign PDFs, & more using an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI). Client (JavaScript) and server APIs allow for endless possibilities .NET Core, Framework, & .NET 5+ supported Try editing any PDF with RAD PDF, FREE!
    Starting Price: $299 per developer
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  • 4
    PDF Studio
    PDF Studio is a powerful and affordable PDF editor that effortlessly caters to both simple and complex PDF tasks. From adding text, various annotations, watermarks, and digital signatures to filling out forms and converting MS Office to PDF, it covers all your needs. The PDF editor is perfect for companies and organizations looking to seamlessly automate their PDF editing and eliminate repetitive daily tasks with batch processing of multiple documents. Empower your team with perpetual PDF software at a fraction of the cost compared to competing subscription-based solutions like Adobe® Acrobat®. NEW: Qoppa PDF Studio 2023 released! The latest version, PDF Studio 2023, offers impressive enhancements, including support for Dropbox Team Spaces, improved enterprise deployments, expanded multi-document functions, a new highlighter marker tool, and optimization options for smaller document sizes. Available on Linux, Windows, macOS, and other major platforms.
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    Starting Price: $99.00
  • 5
    Adobe PDF Library SDK

    Adobe PDF Library SDK

    Datalogics Inc.

    Adobe PDF Library is the only commercial PDF SDK built on Adobe Acrobat's own core engine, delivering the same rendering accuracy, PDF spec coverage, and behavior as Acrobat itself. Available in Modern C++, Adobe C/C++, .NET, .NET Framework, and Java, and supported on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Create, edit, merge, split, annotate, and watermark PDFs programmatically; convert to and from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF/A, PDF/X, and more; add OCR, digital signatures, redaction, and encryption; and process AcroForms and XFA forms. SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, with a 91% customer retention rate among enterprise users. For enterprise deployment, the pdfRest API Toolkit Container packages this technology as a self hosted REST API for on premises, private cloud, or hybrid environments. Datalogics also offers Scout, an AI assistant, and an MCP server so teams can bring PDF capabilities into AI powered workflows.
    Starting Price: $5,999
  • 6
    Foxit PDF Reader

    Foxit PDF Reader

    Foxit Software

    Whether you're a consumer, business, government agency, or educational organization, you need to read, create, sign, and annotate (comment on) PDF documents and fill out PDF forms. Foxit PDF Reader is a small, lightning fast, and feature rich PDF viewer which allows you to create (free PDF creation), open, view, sign, and print any PDF file. Foxit Reader is built upon the industry's fastest and most accurate (high fidelity) PDF rendering engine, providing users with the best PDF viewing and printing experience. Available in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Sign documents in your own handwriting or utilize eSignature and verify the status of digital signatures. Be safe from vulnerabilities by utilizing Trust Manager/Safe Mode, ASLR & DEP, Disable JavaScript, and Security Warning Dialogs. Integrate with leading cloud storage services and popular enterprise CMS.
    Starting Price: $8 per month
  • 7
    MuPDF

    MuPDF

    Artifex Software

    Add powerful PDF functionality to all of your software application projects. MuPDF is a highly versatile, customizable PDF SDK that can be used as a PDF renderer, viewer, or library. The tiny footprint and lightning-fast performance make MuPDF a perfect fit for mobile browsers, eBooks, and embedded applications where small size is key. MuPDF supports a variety of interactive features including annotations, form filling, digital signatures, redactions, text search, and progressive loading. The wide range of input and output formats and our full range of platform support deliver a flexible solution to easily and successfully fulfill your project’s unique needs. MuPDF supports PDF, XPS, OpenXPS, EPUB, FictionBook 2 and CBZ. The MuPDF API easily integrates with all of the major platforms including Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, OpenBSD, and Windows. C++ and Python bindings have been added making it easy to use the MuPDF library from these languages.
    Starting Price: $749/per platform*
  • 8
    Able2Extract Professional
    Convert, create, edit, OCR, compare, and sign PDFs. Customize the interface language and its appearance from light to dark themes for working with PDFs comfortably. Tailor your conversions by selecting a page, a paragraph, or even a single line for conversion. Custom PDF to Excel conversion to convert complex PDF table data to Microsoft Excel with pinpoint precision and a Smart Layout Detector for keeping table styles intact. Edit PDF text and pages. Annotate and redact PDF content. Sign PDF documents. Fill, edit and create PDF forms. Split documents into even parts. Convert scanned PDFs in English, French, Spanish, and German. Automate the batch PDF conversion process by queuing up a large volume of PDF files and even whole directories. Batch create PDF from a wide range of formats and merge all PDFs into one file. Create secure PDFs from blank pages or existing documents by adding passwords and file permissions. Able2Extract Professional: Your Swiss Army Knife for PDF files.
    Starting Price: $149.95/one-time/user
  • 9
    Conholdate.Total For .NET
    Conholdate.Total for .NET is the complete package of all .NET APIs as offered by Aspose and GroupDocs. It empowers the developers to perform a wide range of document processing tasks from within their own .NET based applications. This .NET package is an all-in-one solution for all types of document managements systems because it offers the ability to create, edit, print, view, annotate, compare, sign, automate, search and convert between a wide range of popular document formats. Process a Multitude of File Formats - Conholdate.Total for .NET empowers you to build an incredibly versatile file processing system capable of handling many popular file formats. You can easily open, create, modify and convert file formats. Conholdate.Total for .NET currently supports following file types: Microsoft Word documents Microsoft Excel spreadsheets Microsoft PowerPoint presentations Adobe PDF documents Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Project files and more than 100 other file formats
    Starting Price: $4,999
  • 10
    JPedal

    JPedal

    IDR Solutions

    JPedal is a versatile Java PDF Library for displaying, converting, printing, and parsing PDFs in Java applications. With over 20 years of development, it supports a wide range of PDF files. Key features include: -PDF to Image Conversion: Converts PDFs to images in various formats. -Java Swing PDF Viewer: Offers multi-page display, search, printing, and annotation editing. -Text and Image Extraction: High-quality extraction of text and images from PDFs. -PDF Search: Supports searching with wildcards and regular expressions. -Form & Annotation Handling: Supports XFA and AcroForms, enabling form data access and annotation editing. -Document Manipulation: Allows deleting, merging, splitting, and optimizing PDFs. -Security & Performance: Runs locally without third-party dependencies, processing PDFs up to 3x faster than alternatives.
    Starting Price: $950 one time fee
  • 11
    Slim PDF Reader

    Slim PDF Reader

    Apryse Software

    Copy and paste PDF text, annotate PDFs, fill out interactive PDF forms, and validate digital signatures you receive on Windows, Mac, and Linux with a lightweight & completely free Slim PDF Reader. It comes with a Dark theme setting that will help you save battery on a laptop and reduce eye strain, a full range of advanced and customizable annotation tools, various document navigation tools, search and print features, ability to copy text for pasting into another application, snapshot tool, interactive PDF form filling and signature verification features. Slim PDF Reader is one of the smallest desktop PDF readers (download size only 15 MB), 100% bloatware free, fast and easy on system resources.
    Starting Price: Free
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