Adding audio comments to a PDF with Acrobat

by Kurt Foss, Editor, AcrobatUsers.com

With the increasing use of rich-media PDF files, more users are taking advantage of the tools in Acrobat for adding or embedding sound clips and movies. Both the Sound Tool and the Movie Tool are found in Acrobat 7 Professional's Advanced Editing toolbar: 

Acrobat > Tools > Advanced Editing

NOTE: You can also attach a file to a PDF file from:
Acrobat > Document > Attach a file 

But there's another way to add and make use of audio in PDF documents, taking advantage of a separate tool — with a different purpose. It's important to understand the distinctions between the tools and their intended usage.

Acrobat 7 provides a rich set of tools for participating in a PDF-based document review cycle, allowing users to add comments, notes and other kinds of markup that can then be shared electronically. One of the options for adding comments is to attach a pre-recorded audio clip or to record audio directly into PDF. These capabilities can be found in the Comments toolbar:

Acrobat > Comments > Commenting Tools  ...or

Acrobat > Tools > Commenting 

Select the Record Audio Comment tool in the Commenting toolbar. Click the document where you want the audio comment icon (choice of three) to be added and the Sound Recorder opens, with which you can directly input an audio comment through either a built-in or properly configured external microphone.

Click the red button to record, speak your comment clearly into the microphone, then click Stop when finished. Click the black triangle at left to play the recording, then OK to place the audio comment icon on the PDF page.

In the Sound Recorder, you can also click Browse to locate a previously recorded file (WAV or AIFF) that you want to add to the PDF file as an audio comment. Once you select the file, a second dialog allows you to choose one of four icons you want displayed to indicate the placement of the audio comment. A user clicks the audio icon to either play or download the comment.

Here's a major difference in using the audio commenting tools versus adding a file attachment or embedding a sound or movie clip: audio comments are tracked with other comments in a review workflow, and will appear in the PDF file’s Comments list.