About Annotating Annotation View Geometry (AutoCAD Mechanical Toolset)

If the annotation view is inserted into another drawing as an external reference (xref), the annotations too are brought along and displayed.

However, if you do not activate the annotation view, the annotations you add belong to the drawing and not to the annotations view. If the annotation view is inserted into another drawing as an xref, the annotations are not brought along

Apart from the additional step to activate the annotation view first, all other procedures are identical to how you would annotate any other geometry in AutoCAD Mechanical toolset.

Note: Annotation views cannot act as a container for parts lists and balloons. They are forcibly made part of the drawing even if the annotation view is active when you add it. This is because parts lists and balloons can potentially contain formulas, that may be not applicable if the annotation view is inserted as an external reference (xref) to another drawing.