Microsoft has pushed a new build of Edge browser (v90.0.796.0) to the Dev channel of its Insiders program. The new build brings a host of new features and a precursor to upcoming tricks such as a Kids Mode and a crowdsourced approach to make website notifications less distracting. However, the latest build of Edge also adds another feature that will make it extremely easy to annotate PDF files.

Just select a portion of text to automatically open the annotation quick menu

The fresh beta of Edge browser has introduced a new quick menu for annotating on PDF files, one that would save you the hassle of finding the desired tools in a dedicated row below the URL bar. Now, all you have to do is select the desired text and a quick menu with key annotation tools will automatically pop up.

Microsoft Edge

The quick menu for annotating PDF files offers four options viz. copy the selected text, highlight the selected text, add a comment to the selected text portion, and a ‘More actions’ option as well. The highlight sub-menu will also let you pick the color for highlighting the selected text. If you click on ‘More actions’, it will open the full context menu with all the options that the browser currently has to offer.

Microsoft’s new PDF annotation trick for Edge browser works both with mouse and cursor input as well as touch gestures. “To invoke the menu with touch, you can select any piece of text with long press or double tap and by adjusting the grippers. The menu will pop up automatically in the expanded state and you can tap on any of the options to activate. To dismiss the menu without selecting any options, you can just tap outside of the menu,” the company said in its blog post.

And in case you’ve already highlighted a text, you just need to tap on that portion to open the quick menu without having to select anything. Plus, you will be able to change the highlight color and choose to remove it altogether as well. However, the highlight colors are just limited to five shades at the moment, with no way scope to select a custom shade.