How to add annotations to a PDF file

What is PDF Annotation?

Annotating PDF files is an essential skill for collaboration, review, and seamless communication in both professional and educational workflows. PDF annotations allow you to draw over, highlight, label, or otherwise “annotate” the document without modifying the existing content.

Why Annotate PDF Files?

A common use case would be for gaining feedback on an essay, a teacher can mark and add comments to the document without having to edit it.

Other common use cases could include

• Collaborate efficiently: share feedback, corrections, and comments without altering the original document.
• Streamline review & proofreading: ideal for educators, editors, designers, and teams to add highlights, corrections, and notes.
• Enhance document management: keep track of revisions, approvals, and important details with clear visual annotations.
• Facilitate automation: programmatically add annotations across multiple documents to save time and improve consistency.
• Improve accessibility: annotated PDFs are compatible with most PDF readers, allowing wide sharing and viewing.

JPedal provides two ways to annotate PDF documents, visually and programmatically.

Visually Annotating PDF

Using the JPedal Viewer, users can draw annotations directly on PDF documents and save them. This method is straightforward for individuals who want to add feedback and notes without programming. Users can highlight, add comments, and draw shapes or freehand on the document, then resave the annotated file.

Programmatically Annotating PDF

For bulk annotation tasks or automating annotations on multiple pages and documents, JPedal’s PDF PDF Manipulator API allows programmatic annotation.

Developers can write Java code to add various annotation types, such as text boxes or hyperlinks, and apply these annotations to specified pages before saving the output files. This is ideal for applications requiring automated document processing and review workflows.

final PdfManipulator pdf = new PdfManipulator();

pdf.loadDocument(new File("inputFile.pdf"));


final Annotation[] annotations = new Annotation[2];

// Text box annotation with size 12 Times New Roman font red color and center aligned text.

annotations[0] = new FreeText(new float[] {400, 600, 500, 700}, "hello!", new float[] {1.0f, 0.0f, 0.0f}, BaseFont.TimesRoman, 12, Quadding.CENTRED);

// Hyperlink annotation with blue color.

annotations[1] = new Link(new float[] {200, 600, 300, 700}, new float[] {0.0f, 0.0f, 1.0f}, "https://idrsolutions.com/");

pdf.addAnnotation(1, annotations);


pdf.apply();

pdf.writeDocument(new File("outputFile.pdf"));

pdf.closeDocument();

FAQs

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractClippedImages.writeAllClippedImagesToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", "outputImageFormat", new String[] {"imageHeightAsFloat", "subDirectoryForHeight"});

final PdfManipulator pdf = new PdfManipulator();
pdf.loadDocument(new File("inputFile.pdf"));
pdf.addPage(1, PaperSize.A4_LANDSCAPE);
pdf.addText(1, "Hello World", 10, 10, BaseFont.HelveticaBold, 12, 1, 0.3f, 0.2f);
pdf.addImage(1, new BufferedImage(), new float[] {0, 0, 100, 100});
pdf.rotatePage(1, 90);
pdf.apply();
pdf.writeDocument(new File("outputFile.pdf"));

Viewer viewer = new Viewer();
viewer.setupViewer();
viewer.executeCommand(ViewerCommands.OPENFILE, "pdfFile.pdf");

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractTextAsWordList.writeAllWordlistsToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", -1);

PdfMerge.mergeFiles(new File("inputFile1.pdf"), new File("inputFile2.pdf"), new File("outputFile.pdf"));

PdfManipulator.splitInHalf(new File("inputFile.pdf"), new File("outputFolder"), pageToSplitAt);

PrintPdfPages print = new PrintPdfPages("C:/pdfs/mypdf.pdf");

if (print.openPDFFile()) {
    print.printAllPages("Printer Name");
}

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ExtractClippedImages.writeAllClippedImagesToDir("inputFileOrDirectory", "outputDir", "outputImageFormat", new String[] {"imageHeightAsFloat", "subDirectoryForHeight"});

//Convenience static method (see class for additional options)
ArrayList resultsForPages = FindTextInRectangle.findTextOnAllPages("/path/to/file.pdf", "textToFind");

java -jar jpedal.jar --inspect "inputFile.pdf"

PdfSigner.signPdf(
        "inputFile.pdf",
        "outputFile.pdf",
        "keystorePassword",
        "keystoreFile.p12",
        "signerName",
        "signerLocation",
        "signingReason",
        ACCESS_PERMISSION.P1
);