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Annotation bar

Annotations are remarks placed on document pages by a reader of the document. Annotations can be removed and are not part of the page text content.

You can create new annotations by clicking the buttons for creating new annotations. The following annotation types are supported:

Once you select a button with a specific annotation type, the PDF Viewer SDK let's you create the annotation by clicking on a page. Annotations can be stored directly in a PDF or outside of a PDF in an additional FDF file. The rest of this section describes the supported annotation types.

Sticky note annotation​

A sticky note consist of an icon placed on a page.

Ink annotation​

An ink annotations consists of free hand lines drawn onto a page. The line color and thickness can be adjusted. All lines pertaining to a single annotation are contained on the same page and have the same color and thickness.

Eraser tool​

The eraser can be used to delete individual lines in the Ink annotation. When deleting all lines, then the entire annotation is deleted.

Free-text annotation​

Free text annotations are the only annotations which do not have an annotation popup. The annotation text is drawn in a rectangular area directly on the page. Free text annotations support basic text formatting.

Highlight annotation​

A highlight annotation is used to highlight text by either of the following methods:

  • Overlay with a color
  • Underline
  • Underline with a squiggly line
  • Strike through

Rectangle and ellipse annotations​

Rectangle and ellipse annotations are used to draw rectangles and ellipses in a specified color onto the page.

Stamp annotation​

Stamp annotations are used to place a predefined text or image onto the page.

Text stamp annotation​

You can choosed from the following predefined text in the text stamp:

  • Approved (default)
  • Not approved
  • Draft
  • Final
  • Completed
  • Confidential
  • For Public Release
  • Not for Public Release
  • Void
  • For Comment
  • Preliminary Result
  • Information only

In contrast to other annotation types, text stamp annotations come in fixed predefined colors.

Image stamp annotation​

When clicking on the image stamp annotation button, a file selection dialog opens for the user to select an image file.

The following image file formats are supported:

  • BMP (1, 2, 4, 8, 24 bit)
  • GIF (2 to 8 bit)
  • JBIG2 (lossless compression)
  • JPEG, JPEG2000 and JPEGLS (grayscale, RGB)
  • PBM and PNG (1 to 8, 24 bit)
  • TIFF:
    • Bitonal: Uncompressed, CCITT G3, CCITT G32D, CCITT G4, LZW, ZIP, Packbits
    • Grayscale, RGB and CMYK: uncompressed, LZW, JPEG, JPEG (old), ZIP, Packbits