---
title: Annotate Tool
description: Mark up a view with text boxes, road-sign stickers, freehand scribbles and a title block for exports, without leaving Podaris for an image editor.
---

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# Annotate Tool

## Mark up a view with text boxes, road-sign stickers, freehand scribbles and a title block for exports, without leaving Podaris for an image editor.

Use the Annotate tool to mark up a view with notes, warning signs, freehand sketches and a title block for exports: the sort of thing you would once have added in an image editor after taking a screenshot.

It is built for marking detours, closures, new developments, active travel schemes and School Streets, and for stakeholder workshops where the map has to explain itself.

**![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.31.12](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.31.12.png?width=670&height=406&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.31.12.png)**

Opening the tool

Click **Annotate** in the tool bar, or press **T**. ![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.24.10](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.24.10.png?width=25&height=23&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.24.10.png)

Annotations work in every project type, including Plan, Network, Dataset and Streets projects. Annotate is not available on read-only views, and is disabled while a view is frozen, for example a published street network version.

### Adding a text box

1. With Annotate active, open the **Add** menu and choose a text box style: **Notice**, **Closure**, **Detour**, **Information** or **Custom**. Each preset has its own icon and colours, matching the sign families planners already use: yellow for temporary notices and diversions, red for closures, blue for information.
2. Click the map to place it, then click again to stop placing, or press **Esc**.
3. With the box selected, the panel lets you change its **Style**, show or hide the preset icon, pick **Background**, **Border** and **Text** colours when the style is Custom, edit the **Title** and **Text**, set its **Size**, add a **Pointer**, set its **Opacity**, and choose **Show in**: this view only, or all views.

The text field supports Markdown, so bold, links and lists are available for anything longer than a line. Text that does not fit shows an expand button that opens the full text in a window.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.34.47](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.34.47.png?width=257&height=473&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.34.47.png)

### Stickers

Stickers are small icons, such as road signs, transit symbols and warning triangles, that you place and resize like a text box but without the text.

1. Open **Add** and choose **Sticker**.
2. Pick a **Set**: **UK signs**, **US signs**, **Engagement** (icons aimed at public consultation boards) or **Organisation**, your own uploaded stickers.
3. Browse by category, including Regulatory, Warning, Works and detours, Active travel, Information and School streets, or type into **Search stickers** to filter by name across every set at once.
4. Click a symbol, then click the map to place it.

Once placed, a sticker can be resized, rotated, given a pointer, and have its opacity and view scope changed exactly like a text box.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.35.07](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.07.png?width=296&height=404&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.07.png)

#### Your organisation's sticker library

Organisation admins can add their own stickers, such as a company logo or a site-specific hazard icon, so everyone in the organisation can use them.

1. Open **Add \> Sticker** and set **Set** to **Organisation**.
2. Click **Upload** and choose a PNG, WebP or JPEG image up to 512 KB. It is added to the shared library immediately.
3. To remove one, hover it in the grid and click the small close button. This only removes it from the library: any annotation already using it keeps rendering.

Only organisation admins see the upload and remove controls. Everyone else can pick from the library but not change it. A library holds up to 200 stickers.

### Scribbles

A scribble is a freehand pen stroke, for circling something or sketching a route by hand.

1. Open **Add \> Scribble**.
2. Pick a **Colour** and a **Width**.
3. Choose a **Scale**, screen or map, as described below.
4. Drag on the map to draw. The tool stays armed for the next stroke, so press **Esc** or pick another tool to stop.

On a touchscreen or pen device, pressure changes the stroke's width as you draw. With a mouse, faster strokes taper thinner.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.35.33](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.33.png?width=297&height=248&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.33.png)

### The title block

The title block is a fixed panel for exports and printed maps, carrying a project name, the current date and your organisation's logo.

- Open **Add \> Title block**. There is only one per view, so if it already exists, picking this selects it rather than creating a second.
- Choose which **Corner** it sits in.
- Show or hide the **Date** and the **Logo**, which comes from your organisation's settings.
- Set its **Min size**. It grows taller automatically to fit its text.

The title block is always screen-sized and has no pointer, since it is not anchored to a place on the map.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.35.23](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.23.png?width=328&height=209&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.23.png)

### Map size versus screen size

Every annotation except the title block can be sized two ways, set from its **Scale** field.

- **Screen (fixed size)**, the default. Its size in pixels stays constant as you zoom, like an on-screen label.
- **Map (scales with zoom)**. Its size is fixed in metres on the ground, so it zooms with the map like a real feature. Useful for something that should stay the same size relative to the street, such as a school-zone sign.

Switching to Map keeps its current on-screen size at the moment you switch, and switching back to Screen keeps whatever size it had zoomed to.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.35.42](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.42.png?width=230&height=127&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.35.42.png)

### Leader lines

A leader line or arrow points from a text box or sticker to a specific spot on the map, which helps when the box has to sit somewhere less cluttered than the thing it describes.

1. With the annotation selected, set **Pointer** to **Line** or **Arrow**, or **None** to remove it.
2. Click **Pick on map**, then click the target point. You can drag the leader's end afterwards to move it without picking again.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.37.10](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.37.10.png?width=266&height=158&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.37.10.png)

Scribbles and the title block do not have leader lines: a scribble has no single anchor point, and the title block is not tied to a map location.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.37.34](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.37.34.png?width=362&height=168&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.37.34.png)

### Ordering annotations

Annotations stack, and the one on top can cover those below it. Open the **In this view** list at the bottom of the panel to see every annotation in the current view, with the top of the list drawn on top.

- **Drag** a row up or down to restack it.
- Use **Bring to front** or **Send to back** for a one-click move to either end.
- Each row can **Zoom to** its annotation or **Delete** it without selecting it first.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.37.47](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.37.47.png?width=125&height=70&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.37.47.png)

Restacking is a single undo step, however many annotations moved.

### Selecting, copying and rotating

Text boxes, stickers and scribbles work with the **Select**, **Copy** and **Rotate** tools like stations and other map features.

- **Select**: draw a box or lasso to select annotations alongside everything else, with Within and Intersect applying to the annotation as drawn. Shift-click adds or removes one, dragging moves the whole selection including pointers and scribble lines, and Delete removes it all in one undo step. A plain click opens the annotation in Annotate.
- The Select panel lists them under **Annotations**, with Zoom to on each row and Bring to front, Send to back and Delete for all of them. With one selected, **Edit** opens it in Annotate.
- **Copy**: the copies follow the pointer until you click to place them, and right-click or Esc cancels. Copies keep their style, size and view, and go on top.
- **Rotate**: annotations move around the pivot, and stickers turn by the same angle. Text boxes stay upright so they stay readable.

The title block stays in its corner, so it is never box-selected, copied or rotated. Annotations are inert in every other tool.

### Permissions, history and undo

Adding, editing, moving and deleting annotations follows the same edit permissions as the rest of the view: if you can edit the view, you can annotate it. The organisation sticker library is the exception, since only organisation admins can add to or remove from it.

Every change is a normal entry in the view's edit history and undoes and redoes like any other edit, including restacking, resizing and switching between screen and map sizing.

Collaborators see changes live. Edits to different fields of the same annotation merge, and an undo is refused once someone else has changed the same thing.

### Display settings

**Display Settings \> Annotations** turns every annotation in the view on or off and sets an overall opacity, which multiplies with each annotation's own opacity. An annotation set to 80% inside a view set to 50% renders at 40%.

This is a view display setting, not a permissions control. Switching annotations off hides them for whoever has that setting active: it does not remove them, and does not stop other people or exports showing them if their own setting is on.

![Screenshot 2026-10-06 at 16.38.34](https://support.podaris.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.38.34.png?width=393&height=412&name=Screenshot%202026-10-06%20at%2016.38.34.png)

### Engage and read-only viewers

In Engage and any other read-only view, Annotate itself is not available because there is nothing to author, but the annotations render exactly as they do in Plan and respect the display settings above. Clicking a text box or sticker opens a small read-only panel with its title and text, so a viewer can read a note without it staying open and covering the map.

### Printing and exporting

Annotations are included automatically in the [Snapshot tool](https://support.podaris.com/snapshot-tool?hsLang=en), PNG exports, browser printing and the project thumbnail, in their current stacking order and at the opacity set both on the annotation and in display settings. There is nothing extra to turn on: if you can see an annotation on the map, it will be in the export.

### Views and copies

An annotation can belong to one view or to all of them, set by its **Show in** field, so each [view](https://support.podaris.com/views-panel?hsLang=en) can carry its own notes. Duplicating a project or a view copies its annotations, and deleting a view deletes its annotations as a single history entry.

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