Annotate PRO for Microsoft Word
Grading papers and creating meaningful feedback is hard work. It is some of the most important work teachers can do. Annotate PRO for Microsoft Word is a simple (but mighty!) add-in that makes it easy to give personalized, detailed feedback to students on their work. We support Word 2016 and later, including Office365 (O365) versions of Word. It also works with Word inside Microsoft Teams!
Annotate PRO (AP) is free and installs into Microsoft Word in seconds, through the Office Store. Â
You can also install the free AP Chrome Extension to use the same comment libraries with  Blackboard LMS, Brightspace (D2L), Canvas LMS, Google Classroom, Google Docs, Gmail, Microsoft Teams (web version), Microsoft Word Online, Microsoft Outlook (web), Slack (web) or Schoology LMS.
I'm about halfway through a set of papers, and I just LOVE how easy it is to draft a comment on the fly while grading a paper and then to go back to the Annotate PRO Feed after I'm done with the paper and add those comments into my library. I have two more sets of papers to grade over the next week or so, and I'm actually looking forward to it!
Using Annotate PRO with Word
The Taskpane
The Taskpane can be detached and ‘floated;’ if you’re a dual-monitor maven you’ll love it. Just click the top of the Taskpane and drag and it will pop out into its own floating box.
Drag the Taskpane anywhere you want!
Notice that there are three Libraries in use in these screenshots – AP supports using multiple Libraries at the same time. Use one for all your standard writing comments, course–or subject–specific ones, then quickly add/drop as needed. Or license one of AP’s existing Libraries of expert-written feedback.
Taskpane Options
- Auto Comment: when turned on, inserting Comments will automatically generate a comment bubble in Word. Turning this capability OFF allows you to insert comments into the body of the document OR into a comment bubble you create manually. More detailed information about this function can be found in the support documentation.Â
- Edit Menu: Open different editing options such as Sorting and Coloring Favorites, creating a new Library, or editing existing comments.
- Refresh: If you’ve made changes to AP in on the web and they’re not displaying in Word, click refresh to update your content.
- Settings (Gear Icon): Access all AP settings options, including showing Freeform and Translate, Comment History settings, or enabling small buttons.
- Comment Display Toggle:Â Select between seeing your Libraries that you can click through to navigate, along with your Favorited Comments, or showing all your Comments as buttons.
Comment History
AP+ and Institutional users can click through from AP to view a history of all the comments they have created using the Free Form comment entry option in AP for Word. Click here to learn more.Â
Adding Content from AP
To create a Comment in Word, just highlight the text you want to give feedback on and choose a Comment from AP.
You can use full-text search, click a green Library button to scroll through (great for discovery) Libraries of Comments or use a Favorite button for frequently used comments.
AP will add a comment bubble and insert your chosen text. Of course, you can further personalize the content.
Feedback FormsÂ
AP Word supports using dynamic Feedback Forms to help create more dynamic, actionable feedback. They are an ideal fit for creating marking guides, rubrics*, adding variety to how you praise students, or quickly highlighting mistakes in following style guidelines.
*AP Dynamic Rubrics are available for the Chrome extension and are coming soon to AP Word.Â