How to annotate an ebook
To annotate an ebook, open it in Kindle, Apple Books, or Google Play Books and press and hold any word to highlight or add a note — all free, built into the app. If the ebook is a PDF or designed doc you need someone else to mark up, share a link they can annotate in a browser with no account or download.
In the Kindle app (iOS, Android, Mac, Windows)
Open the book in the Kindle app. Press and hold a word until the selection handles appear, then drag to cover the passage you want. A toolbar pops up: choose Highlight (pick yellow, blue, orange, or pink) or Note to type a comment. Notes appear as a small speech-bubble icon in the margin; tap it to re-read or edit. All your highlights and notes sync automatically across devices through your Amazon account. To export them: go to read.amazon.com/notebook — every highlight and note for every Kindle book is listed there, and you can copy the text. Physical Kindle owners: the same toolbar appears when you tap and hold.
In Apple Books (iPhone, iPad, Mac)
Open your book in the Books app. Tap and hold a word, drag to select a passage, then choose Highlight or Add Note from the menu. On the Highlight option you can pick from five colours; notes appear as a small bubble in the margin. On Mac, the experience is identical — click and drag, then right-click for the same options. To review all your annotations, tap the Contents icon (three horizontal lines) then Bookmarks & Highlights. Apple Books supports EPUB and PDF formats; if you opened a PDF it uses the same flow. Notes are private to your iCloud account and can't be shared as a live link — to share, tap a highlight and hit Share to send a copy of the highlighted passage as text.
In Google Play Books (browser or Android)
Open a book at play.google.com or in the Android app. Click and drag to select text; a toolbar appears with Highlight and Add note. Choose a colour for the highlight or type a note in the pop-up box and click Save. Your annotations appear in the left sidebar under My activity — you can filter by highlights, notes, or bookmarks. On Android the flow is the same: tap and hold, drag, pick Highlight or Note. One limitation: annotations in Google Play Books are tied to your Google account and can't be exported directly to a file, though you can copy individual notes manually.
For EPUB files on desktop (Calibre or a browser extension)
If you have a DRM-free EPUB — a book you bought direct from a publisher or author, or a personal document — you can open it in Calibre (free, Windows/Mac/Linux) or convert it to PDF first and annotate in Preview or Edge. Calibre's built-in viewer has a highlight and note tool: open the EPUB, click the highlighter icon, select text, and add a comment. Your notes are saved in a sidecar file alongside the EPUB. Another route: the browser extension Hypothesis works on EPUBs hosted online and lets you leave public or private annotations without touching the file.
When a client needs to annotate an ebook you designed
If you designed the ebook — a lead magnet, report, or course PDF — and need a client to mark it up and send feedback, avoid emailing the file. The client downloads it, annotates it in whatever software they have (which might not preserve your formatting), re-saves, and emails it back. Now you have two files and no clear version history. A cleaner path is a shared link: drop the PDF into a review tool, send the URL, and the client clicks the exact page or paragraph they mean and pins a note right there — in their browser, no account, no download. Their feedback lands in one place, anchored to the exact spot.
Sending an ebook you designed to a client for sign-off? Drop the PDF into Drafty and share the link. They click the exact paragraph, layout block, or image they mean and pin a comment — no Adobe account, no downloaded file bouncing back over email. You reply in the same thread, mark it resolved, and share the updated version on the same URL. No more 'version 3 FINAL client notes copy.pdf'.
Open a live demoQuestions
- Can I annotate a Kindle book for free?
- Yes. The Kindle app on iOS, Android, Mac, and Windows lets you highlight and add notes to any book in your library at no extra cost. All annotations sync to your Amazon account and are accessible at read.amazon.com/notebook.
- How do I share ebook annotations with someone else?
- Kindle and Apple Books don't have a direct 'share my notes live' feature. You can copy text from a highlight and paste it, or in Kindle export your notes from read.amazon.com/notebook. For collaborative annotation where multiple people need to mark up the same ebook and see each other's notes, you need a PDF version shared through a link-based review tool.
- Can I annotate an ebook on my iPhone?
- Yes — both the Kindle app and Apple Books on iPhone support tap-and-hold to highlight and add notes. For a PDF ebook, iOS Markup (the pencil icon in Files or Safari) adds highlights and freehand drawings.
- How do I annotate an ebook without an app?
- If the ebook is a PDF, drag it into any browser — Chrome, Firefox, or Safari — and use the built-in PDF viewer's highlight and comment tools. No app or account needed. For EPUB files, most dedicated readers require an app, but a free tool like Calibre handles DRM-free EPUBs on desktop.
- How do I get a client to annotate an ebook I made?
- Convert the ebook to PDF and share it via a link they can open in a browser. They can then click the exact spot and leave a pinned comment without installing anything. Emailing the file back and forth creates version confusion — a shared link keeps all feedback on one document.
- What's the difference between annotating an ebook and editing it?
- Annotation adds highlights and notes on top of the document — the underlying text stays unchanged. Editing changes the source content. Annotations in Kindle or Apple Books are stored in your account, not in the file itself; if you share the file, your highlights don't travel with it.
Keep exploring
Stop emailing files back and forth.
Share one link. They comment on the exact spot — no account, always the current version.