3 min readPublished Last reviewed
How Teachers Can Mark Up Student PDFs Digitally
Written and fact-checked by The EditPDF AI Team
Grading digital or scanned student submissions directly on the PDF — circling errors, adding margin notes, and stamping a grade — skips printing entirely while keeping feedback specific to exact spots on the page.
Step-by-step: grade a PDF submission
- 1Open editpdfai.com/pdf-annotate and upload the student's submitted PDF.
- 2Use drawing tools to circle or underline specific errors directly where they occur.
- 3Add comment annotations explaining each correction or point of feedback.
- 4Use a stamp for a grade or a quick standard note, if you grade many submissions the same way.
- 5Download the marked-up PDF and return it to the student.
For scanned handwritten work
If the student submission is a photo or scan of handwritten work, annotate it the same way — the annotation layer sits on top of the page image, so it works whether the underlying page is a scan or a digital document.
Keep a consistent marking key
If you use color-coding or symbols across many submissions, keep a written key for students so your annotations are easy to interpret consistently.
Related PDF tools and guides
Core PDF tool
PDF Annotate
The core workflow is available without an account. Browser and tool-specific limits apply.
Mark up a PDF free →