Shared Review

Collect Comments on an Internal Server

Shared Review allows document authors to share a document on an internal server with others to gather feedback/comments from the reviewers. The review initiator can specify the document location, invite participants and set the review deadline. 

After receiving the invitation from the review initiator, reviewers can mark-up PDFs using a full set of commenting tools. Comments from reviewers will be stored in the internal server and synchronized by Foxit PDF Editor to download them at a regular interval. Reviewers will be notified if new comments are added by others and they can also reply to these comments.

1. (For review initiators) To send a PDF out for shared review (Available in Pro Only), please do the following:

l   Choose a document for shared review and open with Foxit PDF Editor.

Note: To guard against non-reviewers from accessing the document while it is on a shared repository, before sending out for review you can add some security policies to the document such as password/certificate encryption and AIP protection.

l   Choose Share > Send for Shared Review > Collect comments on an internal server.

l   In the pop-up Send for Shared Review dialog box:

1)         Select the location of the document. The location can be a network folder or an on-premise SharePoint workspace.

Tip: If using a network folder, it must be a Windows machine running Windows 7, Windows Server 2008, or a later version of either. All reviewers must have read and write access to the shared folder and then can make comments with Foxit PDF Editor or Reader. You can track each reviewer’s comments and reply to them accordingly. Reviewers can also see and reply to each other’s comments.

2)         Select a distribution and display method:

Send it automatically as a link within the message – The path to the shared document will be automatically included in the email message to be sent to reviewers using your installed email client (i.e. Outlook). The shared document will be named “[original document name]_review.pdf” by default.

Send it automatically as an attachment to the message – The shared document will be automatically sent as an email attachment to reviewers with the name “[original document name]_review.pdf”.

Save a local copy and manually send it later – Click Browse button to rename the shared document and choose a location to save it and send it to reviewers later manually.

3)         Name this server profile, e.g., “S1 (send as attachment)”, for further use in the future. The profile is saved with the options you specified above. In the future, you can select the profile directly from the Ribbon and skip this step.

l   Click Next. If you haven’t set your identity information for your PDF viewers yet, enter your identity information.

l   Click Next to go on. Enter the email addresses of the desired reviewers. A semicolon or a return can be inserted between each address if there is more than one address. Or click To… button to access your contact list in your email system.

l   Choose the review deadline and then type in an email message. 

l   After you send the email or save the shared document to a local copy, the shared document is automatically opened, with a message box in the application window. With the options in the message box, you can publish comments, check for new comments made by reviewers and track the whole review. See also the instructions on "Review a shared review document" and "Review Tracker".

2. (For reviewers) To review a shared review document:

Upon the review initiator sending out the document, the specified reviewers will receive an email invitation to a PDF review. The email includes an attached document named “[original document name]_review.pdf” or provides a URL to the PDF. To review the document:

1)         Download the document and open it with Foxit PDF Editor.

2)         If it is your first time opening a shared review document, you will be prompted for your identity information. Please enter at least your name and email address.

3)         Enter an account name and password for the shared folder where the shared review document is located.

4)         If the notification message setting is enabled in File > Preferences > General, a message box appears in the application window with three options: Check for New Comments, Publish Comments and a menu with three commands (Track Reviews, Save As Archive Copy, and Work Offline). And the Manage Shared Review button in the Share tab is available. Clicking on Manage Shared Review drops down a menu with the commands: Publish Comments, Check for New Comments, Save As Archive Copy, and Work Offline.  

5)         You can add your comments using annotation tools and then click Publish Comments in the message box or click Share > Manage Shared Review > Publish Comments to publish your comments which will be saved to the shared server.

6)         Click on Check for New Comments in the message box or click Share > Manage Shared Review > Check for New Comments to check for new comments made by the initiator or other reviewers. You can also reply to the comments. In normal situations, comment publishing and checking will happen automatically. Foxit PDF Editor supports to configure the interval to check for new comments by selecting a length of time in File > Preferences > Reviewing > Automatically Check for New Comments. The Foxit PDF Editor icon in the taskbar will flash to prompt you that new comments are checked.  

7)         Do more actions with the following options:

Track Reviews – To track all reviews you initiated or participated in, which is very useful when you are involved in multiple reviews. See also the instruction on "Review Tracker".

Save As Archive Copy – Saves a copy of the document with review comments to your hard drive when the review has ended.

Work Offline – If you don’t want to publish comments right after you make the comments, this option can keep your work offline, until you click Work Online to be able to publish comments.

Notes:

1. Reviewers will not be able to make comments or do other modifications to the shared documents in non-Foxit PDF viewers.

2. Reviewers should save the document as an archive copy to the hard drive using Foxit PDF viewers so as to modify the content.