How to show all annotations at once in Preview?

I just got an heavily commented pdf, when I open it in Preview, all annotations (highlights, notes) are "hidden", i.e. do not show up in the left margin. I can display them by clicking on them but I would like to see them all at once without having to click on each of them individually. I couldn't find a menu item but maybe I missed it? Or is there a keyboard shortcut?


This is a workaround, as I couldn't find a hotkey or menu option to do this. Still, clicking

View > Hide Notes

and then

View > Show Notes

Will show all anotations. I can now see all the annotations without manually clicking them. This worked on Preview 5.5.1.


Click View or View Menu icon in the upper left, then Highlight and Notes.


For Preview 8.1, I was also concerned that all my Notes were minimized (their term, not "hidden"). Solution is to change the default (new since 10.7 I think):

View > Highlights and Notes

Once this is toggled, the Notes again show in margins.


There is a direct shortcut for it now. Cmd + alt + 4

Other shortcuts:

  • See table of contents: Cmd + alt + 3
  • See thumbnails: Cmd + alt + 2