Annotations and Redlining

Note: This content is no longer updated. For the latest content, please go to the user guide for M-Files Online. For information on the supported product versions, refer to our lifecycle policy.

You can add comments and stamps, as well as draw arrows, boxes and other shapes to your documents. The feature supports most common file types, including Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint and Visio documents, email files, RTF files, HTML and web archive files as well as OpenDocument files and PDF documents. When you select an annotated document, the task area shows the options to show or hide the annotations.

Note: The annotations are not added to the documents themselves, but rather as detachable layers that can also be hidden if need be.
Note: The M-Files system administrator must first enable the annotations and redlining feature before documents can be annotated. For more information, see Annotations and redlining.

Video: Editing Documents with Annotations in M-Files

Enabling annotations in the user interface

To make sure that annotations are enabled in your user interface:
  1. Open M-Files Desktop and access your vault.
  2. Press the Alt key on your keyboard.
  3. Open the View menu.
  4. Enable the Show Annotations option.

Annotation objects

Your annotations are saved as separate Annotation objects under the main document. M-Files automatically creates these objects every time you start creating new annotations. Annotation objects contain an XFDF file (XML Forms Data Format) that basically tells M-Files the type, form, and location of your annotations.

Supported file formats

This feature supports the following file formats:
  • Email files (eml, emlx, msg)
  • HTML and web archive files (htm, html, mht, mhtml)
  • Image files (tif, tiff, jpg, jpeg, bmp, gif, png)
  • Microsoft Excel files (xlsx, xlsm, xltx, xltm, xlsb, xls, xlt)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint files (pptx, pptm, ppsx, ppsm, potx, potm, ppt, pps, pot)
  • Microsoft Word files (docx, docm, dotx, dotm, doc, dot)
  • OpenDocument files (odt, ott, ods, odp)
  • PDF files
  • RTF files
  • Text files (txt)
  • Visio drawings (vsd, vdx, vss, vsx, vst, vtx, vdw)

Troubleshooting

If you are running into issues with annotations or are unable to use them, see Why can't I convert a document to PDF format or annotate a document? for assistance.