Reviewing and Annotating

The review page is where feedback happens. The document is displayed on the left, and the annotation sidebar on the right tracks all comments in one place.

Modes

The review page has two modes, toggled from the toolbar:

Browse mode (default) — the document is read-only and text is selectable. Use this to read through the content before leaving feedback, or when reviewing annotations others have left.

Comment mode — the cursor changes to a crosshair. Click on any element in the document to place an annotation pin. For images and PDFs, click and drag to draw a rectangular region instead.

Placing annotations

In Comment mode, click on the element you want to annotate. Sidenote identifies the exact HTML element you clicked (a heading, paragraph, button, image, etc.) and places a numbered pin on it.

For HTML documents, annotations are anchored to specific elements using their position in the page structure. If the content changes in a future version, Sidenote does its best to match annotations to the updated elements.

For PDFs and images, annotations are anchored to a rectangular region you draw. Click and drag to define the area, then release to open the comment form.

How annotations work in Sidenote

Writing comments

Place a pin on the document (or click an existing one) to open the comment form in the sidebar. Use the rich text editor to write feedback with basic formatting.

Labels

Optionally tag each annotation with a label to categorise the feedback type:

• Bug (red) — something is broken or incorrect (e.g. typos, broken links, rendering issues).
• Suggestion (amber) — an idea for improvement (e.g. layout tweaks, copy changes, design refinements).
• Question (blue) — something unclear (e.g. requests for context, clarification, or intent).
• Praise (green) — something that works well (e.g. positive reinforcement for good decisions).

If you don’t select a label, the annotation appears with a neutral style.

Suggestions

Use Suggest to propose a specific text change. You can provide both the original text and your suggested replacement so the document owner can see exactly what you’d change and why—especially useful for precise copy reviews.