You access Annotate by right-clicking in a text entry box on just about any website. You should see something very similar to the image at right.

There are a couple of reasons Annotate might NOT insert a comment:

1. Annotate needs a little kick in the rear to get going, especially after first install. Try refreshing the web page (like a Google Document), then trying again.
2. You are right-clicking in a “fancy” text-entry box. For instance, a rich text editor. There is a fast workaround: just right-click outside of the rich text entry box, choose the comment you want from the Annotate menu, then click in the rich text editor where you would like to insert your comment, and Paste. Annotate has added your choice to your clipboard, so you can paste it anywhere (even outside of Google Chrome).

Contact Us if you aren’t getting that Annotate love!

Chrome Extensions update automatically – assuming you have an Internet connection. So you don’t, generally speaking, have to worry about manually updating Chrome Extensions like you might update apps on your phone.

However, sometimes you may want to force Chrome to update more quickly than it otherwise might – for instance, if we release new features and you don’t want to wait for Chrome (which will update over roughly within twelve hours of your releasing an updated version).

Here’s how:

1. Open Google Chrome.
2. Browse to chrome://extensions/ – just like you would visit http://www.google.com.
3. Check the Developer mode box at the top right of the resulting page. See the red numeral “1” in the screenshot below.
4. Make sure your 11trees’ Extension is installed and Enabled. Make a mental note of the version of Annotate PRO or Q for Success. In the screenshot, Annotate PRO is on version 4.0.0.6 (next to the red numeral “2”).
5. Click the  Update extensions now button (red numeral “3” in the screenshot).

All of your Extensions will check for updates and, if available, update. The version will increment to a higher number if indeed an update occurs.

Annotate PRO users – note: refresh any open web pages so that they “get” the new code.

Annotate for Google Chrome is optimized for Google Docs, but you can use it on most websites to enter text.

Many plain text entry boxes, like editing a WordPress Post in text mode, will allow you to right-click and use Annotate to insert comments.

For instance, the screenshot below is of a Blackboard discussion – clicking the HTML button will flip the display to plain text, and Annotate can be used to insert pre-written text.

Alternately, you can just click outside the text entry box – on the body of the webpage – and make a choice from your Annotate right-click menu. The pre-written text will be added to your clipboard, so you can just click back inside the textbox and Paste (CTRL-V or CMD-V) to insert the comment.

Both options take a split second and will help you create much more detailed feedback for students – effortlessly.

As of July 23, 2017 Annotate PRO for Microsoft Word and Google Docs now supports some ‘markdown’ language to format text.

This is a tricky area, because ultimately Annotate PRO’s value is as a ubiquitous solution for providing feedback – in Word, Google Docs, Salesforce, Dropbox, Canvas etc. And these different platforms have varying support for “fancy” text.

For instance, comment bubbles in Dropbox are plain text, so any special characters in your library will be inserted exactly as they are. An Annotate comment that contained “This is *bold*” would appear as “This is bold” in Microsoft Word, but as “This is *bold*” in Dropbox.

Comment bubbles in Word support some formatting. Comment bubbles in Google Docs support a little less. We’ve included a table summarizing text formatting availability on various platforms.

Our recommendation? If you’re are “all in” on Microsoft Word or Google Docs for commenting and feedback, then take advantage of these opportunities to format your text for clarity.

If you’re going to use Annotate in a bunch of different places, stick to plain text.

An example:

• If you wanted to include some italic text and were using Microsoft Word or Google Docs, you could create a comment with _italic text_ in it. The underscores, with spaces on either side of them, tell Annotate to insert italicized text. So in both Google Docs and Microsoft Word when the text was inserted, it would be converted to italic text.
• If you used that same comment to insert text into a Dropbox comment bubble or Google Mail email, you’d get_italic text_.

In other words, the underscores wouldn’t do anything and would be rendered as – underscores.

Sometimes a cigar really is a cigar.

It’s a bit like writing HTML – which we realize is intimidating for some. But taking this approach gives us (and you) maximum flexibility across Word and Google Docs, which is our primary goal. We will be able to add more sophistication as we go, like recognizing which environment is in use and adjusting to suit – perhaps removing special formatting if it isn’t supported.

The silver lining? To include links that appear as clickable in Google Docs and Microsoft Word, just enter the URL. So adding “www.google.com” to an Annotate Comment will appear as www.google.com in a Google Docs or Microsoft Word comment. Automatically.

Notes:

• In Microsoft Word and Google Docs http, https, and www plain-text links will convert to clickable links automatically. So just enter them as plain text. You don’t even need the “http” part.
• After inserting a comment via Annotate in Google Docs you have to hit a space bar before you can click Comment to add the text. Once you do this and click Comment, links will convert to become clickable. A super fast way to use Annotate with Google Docs is to insert a blank Google comment, then an Annotate Comment, then a space bar, then Tab and SPACE again to insert the Comment (look Ma, no mouse!).
• The space after the asterisk for ordered lists is important. So “* First” not “*First”
  • Microsoft Word, weirdly, doesn’t support unordered lists in comments that are created programmatically. We’ll continue to look for workarounds, but for now bullets will convert to numbered (ordered) lists no matter what you do.

This is not currently possible but we are working towards a much more powerful implementation of Libraries and Groups with a targeted release of initial features (which probably won’t include sorting) of September 1, 2017.

We are depending on the powerful Search feature to making ordering of a Comment Library almost unnecessary. Feedback welcome! Click here for a longer discussion of current state vs. goals.

Adding links is a fantastic way to follow the “bite, snack, meal” approach to user experience design.

In the Comment, give the user a concise overview of the issue or compliment (bite). Then give them a link to more detail – that they need to want to pursue (snack). And then, perhaps, in the webpage you provide, give the user additional options to learn: videos, exercises etc. (meal).

So how do you add them?

Just type them in. Like: www.yourgreatlink.com.

As of June 29, 2017 our Microsoft Word add-in will automatically turn plain links like the above into clickable links. Woot! You don’t even have to type the “http://” part – just www.whatever.com.

Google Docs is smart enough to do this on its own if you type a space after a link.

For more on formatting text, see our FAQ on the subject – so you can bold, italicize etc.

Peer review is one the greatest under-used pedagogical strategies.

But student writers, no matter their level, often struggle with providing coherent, constructive feedback.

Annotate PRO can dramatically improve students’ responses to each other, and their assessment of their own work, by providing them with the language of response.

They can highlight some text in their own or a fellow student’s work, then search a Comment Library for an appropriate response.

We can work with your institution to design a Comment Library specifically for peer review, so that the observations (the text the student chooses) is written at the appropriate level and includes questions to help the student dig further into the particular issue.

For instance, a Comment concerning argument might begin:

• Your writing could be stronger here – I don’t think you really believe what you’re saying.

The peer reviewer would select the above text, but then be prompted to continue, making suggestions to help the student writer state their opinions more vehemently along with ideas to improve the logic of the underlying argument.

At the very least, having access to the Comment Libraries used by their faculty will further demystify writing and help them understand more deeply what good writing looks and feels like.

Soon!

Like, summer 2017 – just in time for the new academic year.

Microsoft, to their great credit, have made their cool new Apps for Office solution work on Office for iPad, too.

So if you’ve got Microsoft Word on your iPad you’ll be able to use Annotate PRO there – same library, same full-text search.

The latest version of Annotate PRO works on Microsoft Word 2016 – including Windows and Mac. You can also use Annotate PRO with Word 2016 online.

iPad is coming soon!

Yes!

You can install from here. Or get your school’s Google Suite administrator to add Annotate PRO to all teacher accounts with just a couple of clicks…

We can add your institution’s email domain (like YourISD.edu) to our database and every user will automatically get a specific Comment Library or Libraries.

Automation is so cool!

No.

You can try to use Word Online on your tablet, but your experience will vary with the version of Android, power of your tablet etc. We don’t anticipate it will be a great experience.

And we aren’t aware of any plans on the part of Microsoft to bring Office to Android tablets.

Google, for its part (as the creators of Android) have been working for years to bring ChromeOS and Android together.

ChromeOS is based on the Chrome browser and is the operating system behind millions of Chromebooks. Chromebooks, by very definition, will never run Microsoft Office. Android tablets cannot run Chrome Extensions, either – which means you can’t use the Annotate PRO for Google Chrome Extension.

No – not yet.

Backstory: some of our Annotate for Word powerusers had discovered a hack (clever!) that allowed them to save off versions of their library as local databases. So they could have one for a Fall assignment, another for Spring assignments – implying that they were writing feedback specific to assignments.

Annotate PRO currently supports the use of ONE library: College Edition (free), College Edition, Legal Writing Edition.

We anticipate adding cloning and sharing of libraries – much easier to do now that we’re in the cloud and working with modern technologies.

Would this feature be useful to you? Would you prefer to share libraries with colleagues before having the ability to flip from library to library? Or just have sections within a library to support different assignments (or other purposes)?