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Bug 168304 - Add Notes to PDF
Add Notes to PDF
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: evince
Classification: Core
Component: pdf annotations
unspecified
Other Linux
: Low enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: Evince Maintainers
Evince Maintainers
: 308463 567939 595436 595589 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2005-02-23 19:53 UTC by Sean Middleditch
Modified: 2018-11-28 15:31 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
create a bare text annot for poppler glib binding. (4.07 KB, patch)
2009-10-06 19:31 UTC, Bug flys
none Details | Review
create a text annot in evince (6.83 KB, patch)
2009-10-06 19:37 UTC, Bug flys
none Details | Review
Fix the drag of ev_annotation_windows (2.07 KB, patch)
2010-07-24 14:17 UTC, José Aliste
none Details | Review
Backtrace (3.71 KB, application/octet-stream)
2010-07-25 19:01 UTC, José Aliste
  Details
Correct the computation of the annotation window position (943 bytes, patch)
2010-07-25 19:52 UTC, José Aliste
committed Details | Review

Description Sean Middleditch 2005-02-23 19:53:13 UTC
There is no way to add notes to an open PDF document.  This feature is missing
from _all_ Free PDF readers, being only available in Acroread that I'm aware of
(and only their non-UNIX versions, at that, last I checked).  PDF has support
for adding and viewing notes, and it would be great to have this feature
supported in Evince for at least PDF, if not other formats that Evince supports.
Comment 1 Bryan W Clark 2005-02-23 20:34:46 UTC
It would be nice, but unless we get some patches for this I doubt we'll get
around to it.  I'm sure the other free PDF readers felt the same way.
Comment 2 Bill Nottingham 2005-03-30 20:00:09 UTC
Acroread for Linux can do notes, at least of the 'fill-in-your-tax-forms'
variety, FWIW.
Comment 3 Nickolay V. Shmyrev 2005-06-21 21:06:19 UTC
*** Bug 308463 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 4 Mark 2005-06-21 21:42:44 UTC
Proposal: do NOT integrate such a feature with the PDF format itself. Make it
independent of the format in use. Just add a transparent pane on which one may
write the comments, and save that pane in an open format (XML?) along with the
PDF, PS or whatever page-based format at hand. Integrate a checksum to make sure
that the receiver of such comment files uses it with the correct PDF or PS file.
Storing the author's ID of a comment would be great, too. That way, one could
even start dicussions right on top of a document's page -- including arrows and
circles to point at the relevant portions of the page.
Comment 5 Nickolay V. Shmyrev 2005-06-22 15:11:51 UTC
We can make this backend-specific. For example, store annotations in pdf to
interoperate better with other pdf readers, but store them in metadata for dvi
or ps.
Comment 6 Bryan W Clark 2005-07-08 18:04:03 UTC
Working on a new system that does notes / bookmarks watch bug 169903 for progress
Comment 7 oa 2005-09-19 11:25:53 UTC
Something similar to annotations, but simpler (at least UI wise), and (I think)
more generally useful, would be highlights. I often find that I print a document
so that I could highlight or underline sections while reading. Having done that,
I would usually like to either circulate a copy or save one electronically.
Sometimes I scan the document back in, but doing so I obviously resort to
converting text to graphics.

I would absolutely *love* to be able to add highlights to a document while
reading it, re-save it, and be able to email the document to someone with the
highlights visible. In fact, sometimes I do this when reviewing documents in
Word format.
Comment 8 Mike Sowka 2006-01-04 19:28:12 UTC
Just wanted to make a note:

If the annotation feature were implemented in Evince using Adobe's ?propriatary? markup format, it will be AWESOME to also be able to "enable" pdf documents. This way our Windows bretheren would be able to work on documents with us much better.

From Adobe's site:
Enable : "Enable anyone with free Adobe Reader® 7.0 software to use highlighter, sticky note, pen, and other commenting tools"
Comment 9 Bryan W Clark 2006-05-30 08:06:13 UTC
Just noting this was the original design we had done for a bookmarks / notes feature.
http://www.gnome.org/~clarkbw/images/evince-bookmarks.png

Our implementation not handling the full adobe spec which is difficult and not that useful, however handling enough of it such that someone using Evince could exchange PDFs with someone using Adobe Acrobar PDF on Win or Linux without issue.  Our design headed for the optimum add quick notes to a document and find them again later as opposed to the PDF Spec design which gives adding lots of different selection and drawing tools along with text annotations and bookmarks outside of this.
Comment 10 Jean-François Fortin Tam 2007-04-22 02:49:33 UTC
Folks! I just discovered, out of total randomness, a new project (looking at sourceforge's project creation date: 2006 09), that actually *can* fully annotate PDFs!

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfedit

I gave it a try, I could add text, rectangles, whatever, save, quit and open the PDF in evince and it would show exactly like the changes I did.
Even better, I could open the PDF again in PDFedit and undo my changes (because you can select anything and delete it).

Would it be possible at all to reuse some of their code?
Comment 11 kai 2009-01-25 18:46:45 UTC
This alongside with bookmark feature are most wanted features for evince for me and other folks I know using Gnome! please, somebody make it happen. Whish I could be able to do programming... 
Comment 12 kai 2009-03-04 13:22:06 UTC
Yeah, totally agree with #11 comment. Whis I could do serious programming. But I am working on it :). Please, somebody pay attention to modernizing Evince - Bookmarks, Side Notes etc. Look at KDE. They have Ocular, which is killer app IMO, app that almost made me use KDE4 :)

Thank you
Comment 13 Martin Spacek 2009-03-07 04:26:24 UTC
I've been waiting for this feature for quite literally, years :) PDF annotation support is now the only thing keeping me from finally switching over from WinXP to Ubuntu as my main OS. I can't stress how important I think this feature is. I have hundreds and hundreds of papers that I've collected over the years, in which I highlight passages and add little text boxes in the columns. I rarely print papers out anymore, and I can quickly find an old one and resume my thought processes about it, years after first reading it. So far, the only app I've found that actually does this reasonably bug-free is Acrobat Professional version 7.0 and up - unfortunately it's a bloated commercial monster.

As a side note, evince doesn't seem to display highlighting properly (at least highlighting saved under Acrobat Pro). The highlighted colour shows up *on top* of the text, obscuring it. Obviously, it should show up underneath the text. This makes evince very annoying to use when viewing my annotated PDFs. I think I recall seeing this reported elsewhere... Last time I tried Okular, highlighting displayed correctly, but my little text boxes didn't. Seems it's vice versa in evince.
Comment 14 Carlos Garcia Campos 2009-09-17 09:45:55 UTC
*** Bug 595436 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 15 Carlos Garcia Campos 2009-09-20 14:02:35 UTC
*** Bug 595589 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 16 Bug flys 2009-10-06 19:31:37 UTC
Created attachment 144908 [details] [review]
create a bare text annot for poppler glib binding.
Comment 17 Bug flys 2009-10-06 19:32:09 UTC
Now that evince can edit existing text annotation with 2.28, creating new one is still not supported by the poppler.

It seems what lacks in the poppler is a FormXObject class which controls the apparent of the note (that little yellow paper). Once you can create a FormXObject, everything else are straight forward:


  Create a FormXObject and attach a PDF file content to it.
  Create a Text Annotation with the FormXObject as the apparent(AP).
  Create a Popup Annotation and attach it to the Text Annotation.

You are done.

Without the formXObject, you cannot see the Text Annotation. I tried that!
Comment 18 Bug flys 2009-10-06 19:37:28 UTC
Created attachment 144909 [details] [review]
create a text annot in evince

Create a text annotation in evince with right-mouse-button. Don't really show up as it lacks Apparent object. If you open the PDF in a text editor and copy an AP from an existing annotation, you will see it.

Also has the problem that the Y-Axis is off.No Popup Annotatin is attached to it, therefore, the annotation cannot be edited.
Comment 19 Bug flys 2009-10-07 01:54:17 UTC
Actually, accord to the PDF Spec., a reader should display a boring white sticky paper:
     12.5.5   Appearance Streams
     Beginning with PDF 1.2, an annotation may specify one or more 
     appearance  streams as an alternative to the simple border and 
     colour characteristics available in earlier versions. 

And indeed, with Acrobat Reader, a white sticky paper is displayed for the Text Annotation the above patches created. It also popups a boring white popup annotation window when being clicked, despite there are no popup annote associated with the Text Annotation.
Comment 20 Carlos Garcia Campos 2009-10-07 09:57:31 UTC
Comment on attachment 144908 [details] [review]
create a bare text annot for poppler glib binding.

Thanks for the patch, but this is not the right place to post poppler patches, please use the freedesktop.org bugzilla. As you already noticed, we need to fix poppler bug #23108 (http://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23108) first.
Comment 21 Carlos Garcia Campos 2009-10-07 10:03:16 UTC
(In reply to comment #18)
> Created an attachment (id=144909) [details]
> create a text annot in evince
> 
> Create a text annotation in evince with right-mouse-button.

The idea was to add a new sidebar page containing a toolbox (similar to glade or gimp) to add new annotations. Right-click menu is probably good when you only have one type of annotation, but ideally we'll be able to add more annotations than Text. Any other idea is of course welcome. 

Thanks!
Comment 22 Carlos Garcia Campos 2009-11-08 10:38:05 UTC
We need icons to implement Text annotations, I've already requested them to the artists team:

http://live.gnome.org/GnomeArt/ArtRequests/issue35
Comment 23 Brian J. Murrell 2009-11-09 14:16:51 UTC
Is this bug being limited to "sidebar annotations" or "post-it note" style annotations, because if so, that's entirely not what I am looking for in bug 595589 which was duplicated to this bug.
Comment 24 Carlos Garcia Campos 2009-11-09 14:24:09 UTC
No, this bug is for any type of annotation defined by the PDF spec. Text annotations (post-it note) are the easiest to implement, so we'll start with them.
Comment 25 Carlos Garcia Campos 2009-12-18 08:49:15 UTC
*** Bug 567939 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 26 reportr 2010-03-25 08:49:33 UTC
Hi Carlos,

I'm just wondering (after having read one of your old blog posts http://carlosgc.linups.org/gnome/evince-2-26-without-annots.html):

  Will highlight and text annotation features ever going to be implemented in Evince?

Thanks.
Comment 27 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-03-27 10:54:04 UTC
Yes, the idea is to implement all annotation types.
Comment 28 Mike 2010-03-27 19:32:50 UTC
I'm anxious for this too, I wonder, is there any timeline, or anything of that sort?
Comment 29 krzysztof pijarski 2010-04-12 04:36:20 UTC
In the meantime one can use X-PDF-Exchange Viewer on Wine (that is what I do - it is free and works extremely well), but if a Linux app wpuld finally support PDF annotations that would be a revolution :) Now with the antialiasing bug in poppler out of the way Evince is on the road to become The linux pdf viewer, which I hope will happen because Evince is great.

So please do not delay this any longer :)
Comment 30 Benjamin Kellermann 2010-07-16 11:32:34 UTC
I just wanted to make you aware, that LaTeX can produce pdf annotations with the “pdfcomment” package. (just if you search something to create testdocuments)

They even provide a really complete example:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pdfcomment/doc/example.pdf
Which currently raises lots of Warnings. E.g.:

** (evince:8491): WARNING **: Unimplemented annotation: POPPLER_ANNOT_LINE, please post a bug report in Evince bugzilla (http://bugzilla.gnome.org) with a testcase.

I assume you do not want, that I post new bugreports for every warning, but please give me a hint if I should create several minimal pdf-files which produce only one warning each to test the single cases.
Comment 31 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-20 15:13:08 UTC
I've just pushed a patch to git master that adds support for adding new Text annotations. Poppler from git master is needed too.
Comment 32 Felix Möller 2010-07-20 15:23:46 UTC
Carlos this is really much appreciated. Thanks alot.

Sadly I am in my exam phase and should not compile poppler and evince the next days... Is there any chance you could blog about it with some screenshots at http://carlosgc.linups.org/. I will test the patch in two weeks. I have been waiting for this several years.

Thank you!
Comment 33 Mike 2010-07-20 17:04:22 UTC
Yes, I've been wanting this in Linux for years as well. Thanks so much for landing this. I can't wait for it to make its way to my distro. Awesome.
Comment 34 José Aliste 2010-07-22 03:07:05 UTC
@Carlos, this is great! 

Some initial comments after testing. Some of these are trivial and most probably are in your TODO, so bear with me, here is the list: 

1. I would like to be able to move the annotation icon.
2. If I move the annotation window and then close it, it reopens in the top-left corner of the EvView widget, i.e. it is not remembering the last position. So, if I have more than one annotation windows in one page and close the annotations, the annotation windows will keep overlaping when reopened. 
3. In the list of annotations, I think it would be much more useful to put the text of the annotation instead of the author. 
4. In the list of annotations, in some annotations, the date is display and in another it does not (for annotations I added). 
5. If you change the size of the side panel, sometimes evince stops responding (with a cairo matrix non invertible error)
6. Right now the feature is very difficult to discover. (open side panel + click in thumbnails, select annotations, then add). 
7. It would be nice if the buttons in the add annotation side panel could be added to the toolbar. 
8. If I add an annotation to the first page of a numdam.org article, evince crashes. 
9. Now that Evince can modify pdf files, maybe it makes sense to have a Save action in the File Menu (it does not seem too intuitive to use Save a copy to save the file with annotations...)
10. If the annotations are not saved, we should warn the user before closing the evince window. 

Well, I guess that's enough for now. Again, I am glad that we are finally getting add/edit annotation support.
Comment 35 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-22 17:31:41 UTC
(In reply to comment #34)
> @Carlos, this is great! 
> 
> Some initial comments after testing. Some of these are trivial and most
> probably are in your TODO, so bear with me, here is the list: 

feedback is always appreciated :-) This is just a first step (we are close to feature freeze), there's still work to do. 

> 1. I would like to be able to move the annotation icon.

hehe, yes, it's not possible to move nor remove annotations. It's not supported by poppler yet. 

> 2. If I move the annotation window and then close it, it reopens in the
> top-left corner of the EvView widget, i.e. it is not remembering the last
> position. So, if I have more than one annotation windows in one page and close
> the annotations, the annotation windows will keep overlaping when reopened. 

Yes, I've noticed it too, it used to work . . . 

> 3. In the list of annotations, I think it would be much more useful to put the
> text of the annotation instead of the author. 

Well, the text might be too long. I followed the acroread behaviour in this case.

> 4. In the list of annotations, in some annotations, the date is display and in
> another it does not (for annotations I added). 

The date is the last modified date, a new annotation has not been modified, since it hasn't been saved to file. 

> 5. If you change the size of the side panel, sometimes evince stops responding
> (with a cairo matrix non invertible error)

hmm, I'll try to reproduce it

> 6. Right now the feature is very difficult to discover. (open side panel +
> click in thumbnails, select annotations, then add). 

See bugs #307044,#510686

> 7. It would be nice if the buttons in the add annotation side panel could be
> added to the toolbar. 
> 8. If I add an annotation to the first page of a numdam.org article, evince
> crashes. 

I've noticed it crashes with some documents too, looks like a poppler issue though, I'll look at it. 

> 9. Now that Evince can modify pdf files, maybe it makes sense to have a Save
> action in the File Menu (it does not seem too intuitive to use Save a copy to
> save the file with annotations...)

well, people still see pdf documents as read-only, that's why we keep the save a copy

> 10. If the annotations are not saved, we should warn the user before closing
> the evince window. 

http://git.gnome.org/browse/evince/tree/shell/ev-window.c#n3314

> Well, I guess that's enough for now. Again, I am glad that we are finally
> getting add/edit annotation support.


Thanks for the comments!
Comment 36 José Aliste 2010-07-24 14:17:38 UTC
Created attachment 166488 [details] [review]
Fix the drag of ev_annotation_windows

This patch fixes the dragging of annotation windows. Now when you move an Annotation window and then scroll the evview the position of the annotation window is not longer reseted. This is not ready though, since I still get some infinite-loops when resizing the side panel (before the patch I also get them, but after this patch, they are easier to reproduce)
Comment 37 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-25 16:54:24 UTC
I've just pushed a different patch that fixes the problem for me. I can't reproduce the infinte-loop.
Comment 38 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-25 16:56:16 UTC
(In reply to comment #35)

> > 7. It would be nice if the buttons in the add annotation side panel could be
> > added to the toolbar. 
> > 8. If I add an annotation to the first page of a numdam.org article, evince
> > crashes. 
> 
> I've noticed it crashes with some documents too, looks like a poppler issue
> though, I'll look at it. 
> 

poppler crash already fixed in git master:

http://cgit.freedesktop.org/poppler/poppler/commit/?id=627edf88c8f5c073a68bd05990df56e1af547292
Comment 39 José Aliste 2010-07-25 19:01:48 UTC
Created attachment 166534 [details]
Backtrace

@Carlos, here is the backtrace I get after interrumping evince and attaching gdb to it when evince goes in the infinite loop. The easiest way to reproduce it is that you add an annotation and then (without further interaction) you start dragging to resize the sidepanel very quickly.
Comment 40 José Aliste 2010-07-25 19:52:10 UTC
Created attachment 166536 [details] [review]
Correct the computation of the annotation window position

This patch address a miscalculation in the ev_annotation_window position when the drag starts.
Comment 41 reportr 2010-07-26 05:13:29 UTC
This is so great that evince is finally getting the much-awaited annotation features. Thank you much for initiating the implementation, Carlos :)

Is highlighting coming next btw?
Comment 42 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-26 09:19:34 UTC
Review of attachment 166536 [details] [review]:

Pushed to git master
Comment 43 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-26 09:20:19 UTC
(In reply to comment #41)
> This is so great that evince is finally getting the much-awaited annotation
> features. Thank you much for initiating the implementation, Carlos :)
> 
> Is highlighting coming next btw?

Yes, we'll add more types of annots during the next cycle.
Comment 44 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-26 14:51:36 UTC
(In reply to comment #32)
> Carlos this is really much appreciated. Thanks alot.
> 
> Sadly I am in my exam phase and should not compile poppler and evince the next
> days... Is there any chance you could blog about it with some screenshots at
> http://carlosgc.linups.org/. I will test the patch in two weeks. I have been
> waiting for this several years.

http://carlosgc.linups.org/gnome/evince-annotations.html

> Thank you!
Comment 45 Brian J. Murrell 2010-07-26 15:02:47 UTC
Will any of this recent work by Carlos be leveragable into the the other component of this RFE, that being the ability to "mark up" (i.e. fill in fields of a form) a PDF?
Comment 46 D Haley 2010-07-26 18:08:43 UTC
Hello,

Firstly, thanks for doing this; PDF annotations seem like a good idea, as I usually hand annotate and scan documents when doing reviewing, as I have never found PDF annotating "smooth".

Having viewed the interaction video, and lacking any knowledge of the acrobat specifications, there are a couple of points from a user perspective that I would like to claarigy

1) Having to open and close notes is irksome; being able to keep them "out of the way" so to speak would be nice; either during creation time (click and drag the comment box) or by re-arranging the comment on any particular document. When one reviews a paper document, one usually writes below, above or puts annotation marks. Being able to move, or otherwise neaten-up comments would be nice.
2) How does one associate a block of text, a paragraph or an image with a comment? (this might be part of the above upcoming changes) To me there should be a line going to a box, or a bracket or a highlighted section from the comment. Usually if I am editing on paper (actually my preferred method, how wierd) I simply underline the relevant bit and draw an arrow to where I want to make my comment. 
3) Can simple typo's and other things be corrected without having to create a new note saying "where you wrote \"teh\" you meant \"the\"" (ie, just simple write-on-page?)
4) Can one hide annotations without deleting them (just to make reading easier)?

Things that looked good:
1) Okular does a weird handling of the "pop up note" -- it is always hidden, and then generates a floating dialog that is no way associated with the page; this association is good!

I am sure this is a lot of user-end "can it just do this" whinging, but maybe the feedback is useful.
Comment 47 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-26 19:03:10 UTC
(In reply to comment #46)
> Hello,
> 
> Firstly, thanks for doing this; PDF annotations seem like a good idea, as I
> usually hand annotate and scan documents when doing reviewing, as I have never
> found PDF annotating "smooth".
> 
> Having viewed the interaction video, and lacking any knowledge of the acrobat
> specifications, there are a couple of points from a user perspective that I
> would like to claarigy
> 
> 1) Having to open and close notes is irksome; being able to keep them "out of
> the way" so to speak would be nice; either during creation time (click and drag
> the comment box) or by re-arranging the comment on any particular document.

The popup window is always open when you create a new annotation because you usually want to add text for the annot after creating it. You can just close the window or move it somewhere else fater entering the text. 

> When one reviews a paper document, one usually writes below, above or puts
> annotation marks. Being able to move, or otherwise neaten-up comments would be
> nice.

Popup windows can be moved. 

> 2) How does one associate a block of text, a paragraph or an image with a
> comment? (this might be part of the above upcoming changes) To me there should
> be a line going to a box, or a bracket or a highlighted section from the
> comment. Usually if I am editing on paper (actually my preferred method, how
> wierd) I simply underline the relevant bit and draw an arrow to where I want to
> make my comment. 

There are other types of annotations to do that, at the moment only Text annotations are supported, they are just an icon with a popup window associated. 

> 3) Can simple typo's and other things be corrected without having to create a
> new note saying "where you wrote \"teh\" you meant \"the\"" (ie, just simple
> write-on-page?)

No

> 4) Can one hide annotations without deleting them (just to make reading
> easier)?

Annotation windows are note deleted when the window is closed, they are hidden indeed. 

> Things that looked good:
> 1) Okular does a weird handling of the "pop up note" -- it is always hidden,
> and then generates a floating dialog that is no way associated with the page;
> this association is good!

Popup windows are hidden by default, but they are shown when the annot is created. When opening the annotated document they will be hidden, unless you make them open by default from the annotation properties dialog. 

> I am sure this is a lot of user-end "can it just do this" whinging, but maybe
> the feedback is useful.

Thanks for the comments, feedback is always appreciated.
Comment 48 D Haley 2010-07-26 19:53:22 UTC
Hi, 

>> 4) Can one hide annotations without deleting them (just to make reading
>> easier)?

>Annotation windows are note deleted when the window is closed, they are hidden
>indeed. 

Sorry, I am still not clear, I am referring not to the window in most of my comments, but the little sticky note icon.
Comment 49 Mike 2010-07-26 21:08:05 UTC
A couple more suggestions from the backseat: 

Why not allow users to right click where they want to add annotations, rather than having to go to the annotation window, then the add tab, then the add button, then click where they want it? Or is this just a prototype? 

Where are the settings are stored for the default annotation style? Are they always red? Will each person editing the doc have a new color by default like in Open Office? 

Another thing that's very nice about open office's implementation is the way notes are on the side of the document, with dashed lines giving them location. The current implementation looks like it's going to obscure a lot of the text whenever notes are opened, which would be too bad.
Comment 50 Martin Spacek 2010-07-26 21:49:46 UTC
Or, while we're at it, what about having an annotation toolbar like in acrobat pro, with buttons for tools that add text, highlighting, etc? I'd also love to see the single key shortcuts that change the mouse cursor accordingly. "U" enables the highlighting tool, "X" enables the text box tool, and so on. Which remind me, a hand tool ("H") would be much nicer than having to always press and hold the middle mouse button for dragging the document up and down. The selection tool ("V") would then return you to an insertion point cursor.
Comment 51 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-27 07:24:15 UTC
(In reply to comment #48)
> Hi, 
> 
> >> 4) Can one hide annotations without deleting them (just to make reading
> >> easier)?
> 
> >Annotation windows are note deleted when the window is closed, they are hidden
> >indeed. 
> 
> Sorry, I am still not clear, I am referring not to the window in most of my
> comments, but the little sticky note icon.

Ah, I see, that's not possible with poppler in this moment, but it definitely makes sense.
Comment 52 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-07-27 07:35:48 UTC
(In reply to comment #49)
> A couple more suggestions from the backseat: 
> 
> Why not allow users to right click where they want to add annotations, rather
> than having to go to the annotation window, then the add tab, then the add
> button, then click where they want it?

That might work now that we only support one annotation type. I agree the feature is hard to discover, though

> Or is this just a prototype? 

well, it's a first idea, if someone come up with a better idea I will try to implement it, patches are even better than ideas :-)

> 
> Where are the settings are stored for the default annotation style? Are they
> always red? Will each person editing the doc have a new color by default like
> in Open Office? 

Everything is stored in the pdf document itself when saving a copy, we use the default values according to the pdf spec, except for the cases where the spec doesn't say anything like the color (we use yellow).

> Another thing that's very nice about open office's implementation is the way
> notes are on the side of the document, with dashed lines giving them location.
> The current implementation looks like it's going to obscure a lot of the text
> whenever notes are opened, which would be too bad.

Icons are just the first annotation type implemented, other types like highlight are much better to annotate text without obscuring it. 

Thanks for the comments
Comment 53 Felix Möller 2010-07-28 09:59:37 UTC
I have tried this today.

For all others:
One has to install a recent (git snapshot) poppler. Fedora 14 currently ships 0.14.1 which is too old.
Evince needs to be from git too. Fedora currently has 2.31.5.

After compiling both of them one gets the joy of notes in evince. If the poppler is not recent enough there will be an annotations pane in evince, but it does not contain the add tab.

Carlos this is really great!!

I suggest one small improvement: Clicking on the Note icon opens the annotation clicking again should close it in my opinion. It is working that way in FoxIt for example. That way you can open large annotations look at them and without moving the mouse close them again ...

Thanks for your work!
Comment 54 reportr 2010-07-31 05:10:29 UTC
> Clicking on the Note icon opens the annotation
> clicking again should close it in my opinion.

Yeah, that's better. But I think simply embedding the annotation text as they
appear without floating icons is much more intuitive. Xournal does it that way
and everyone seems to love its WYSIWYG.
Comment 55 José Aliste 2010-07-31 21:23:07 UTC
(In reply to comment #54)
> > Clicking on the Note icon opens the annotation
> > clicking again should close it in my opinion.
> 
> Yeah, that's better. But I think simply embedding the annotation text as they
> appear without floating icons is much more intuitive. Xournal does it that way
> and everyone seems to love its WYSIWYG.

Please keep in mind that the annotations are part of the PDF specification, so evince, as an implementation of this spec, should comply with some restrictions , like for instance, the popup window behavior is, as far I can tell, described in the spec.  What you describe should be possible with free text annotation. Unfortunately evince does not support them yet.
Comment 56 Felix Möller 2010-08-05 13:03:52 UTC
Hi, I just recognized, that the annotation does not work for some landscape oriented PDFs ...

See <http://www.wiwi.uni-muenster.de/pruefungsamt/downloads/termine/regulaere_klausuren/klausurtermine_master.pdf> for example
Comment 57 Carlos Garcia Campos 2010-08-16 15:04:00 UTC
Felix, right, there's a problem with that document. It looks like a poppler issue, could you please file a bug report in freedesktop.org bugzilla? (poppler product, glib frontend component)
Comment 58 Felix Möller 2010-08-16 16:32:40 UTC
I have reported it at <https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=29592>
Comment 59 Liangxu Wang 2010-10-03 08:55:05 UTC
Could not add annotation in ubuntu 10.10 rc now, the poppler version is 0.14-3, the evince version is 2.32.0, any other limitation for add/edit annotations in pdf?
Comment 60 bzb.dev001 2010-10-07 22:44:27 UTC
It would also be nice that the changes to evince could also consider compatibility with okular.

Okular places it's highlighting and annotations in an xml file.  This file is located at ~useraccount/.kde4/share/apps/okular/docdata.  If evince could import/export this data, it would help users of kde to easily work in both kde and gnome environments.
Comment 61 Felix Möller 2010-10-07 22:48:15 UTC
bzb you might want to look at https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=151614

I think we should try to be interoperable with programs that follow the standard. There are several tools to do annotations on Windows and OS X.
Comment 62 Rising Eagle 2011-01-21 02:04:13 UTC
(In reply to comment #47)
Carlos, Thx for rolling up your sleeves to give us this long sought feature. I have an enhancement to this feature that I would like to see.
MAKING READING PDF'S MORE NATURAL

I often read text books with tables. I have to flip back and forth from the-page-with-the-table to the-current-page. Hypertext jumps or tabs would help, but it's still flipping back and forth of full screens. Split screen would help, but you lose too much screen real estate. Often, the table is so complex or nondescript, that I forget details just by being distracted by the process of flipping back to the-current-page. By the time I'm back on the-current-page, I need to go back and look up the table all over again - very frustrating.

I would like to be able to select a segment of a page, or paragraph as mentioned by D Haley:

> 2) How does one associate a block of text, a paragraph or an image with a
> comment? (this might be part of the above upcoming changes) To me there should
> be a line going to a box, or a bracket or a highlighted section from the
> comment. Usually if I am editing on paper (actually my preferred method, how
> wierd) I simply underline the relevant bit and draw an arrow to where I want to
> make my comment. 

>There are other types of annotations to do that, at the moment only Text
>annotations are supported, they are just an icon with a popup window
>associated. 

Then I would like to have that segment viewported into a floating sticky note (aka postit or pinup note) that I can zoom down/up if I want, hilite/add comments to, close and open (from the sidepanel?), specify to always float on top if I need, and be saved as if it is a real annotation. This way, I can constantly refer to the referenced segment as I might do with a real book and a photocopy of my reference page. This way I can read normally with the table always visible at hand, but placed strategically out of the way or moved away when need be. This especially helps situations where multiple tables or segments must be viewable simultaneously. 

Additional niceties:
It would be nice if the viewport properties could easily be popped up so I can remind myself what page the viewport references from
It would be nice if the viewport hypertexts back to the-original-page
It would be nice if, when I do hypertext to the-original-page, the-current-page temporarily takes over being shown in the viewport and becomes a hypertext back to the-current-page. It will revert automatically when I hypertext back or return some other way to the-current-page.
Comment 63 Autumn Corvus 2011-02-14 03:03:32 UTC
I really hope that highlighting and keyboard shortcuts for annotation will be incorporated in Evince for the next cycle (is that Ubuntu cycle or different?), it would be such a big deal for students and academics like myself, for whom this basic functionality is essential. I agree with most of the other usability suggestions made above, but if we could just get the basic functionality (highlighting, texts notes and keyboard shortcuts) done for the next 11.04 Ubuntu release or as soon as is possible, that would be so amazing! Thanks for all the great work you've done already.
Comment 64 sdaau 2011-04-30 14:17:10 UTC
Hi all, 

I'm loving the newfound support for annotations in Evince! I just wanted to note that I had some problems using Latex+pdfcomment to render annotations in evince: the icon would show, but no popup/text - while the annotations added from Evince would show up properly. 

It turns out, the ones from Evince use a Subtype Text, and a child Subtype Popup (which is somewhat strange, because during my tests, if I tried to have a Subtype Popup only, Evince would say it is not implemented) - while pdfcomment only inserts Subtype Text. 

I provided a small change to the pdfcomment.sty file here: 

A slight change: pdfcomment annot. for Evince - 
http://developer.berlios.de/forum/message.php?msg_id=80027

... and with that, the basic annotation should be clickable/openable in Evince too.. 

Anyways, just wanted to jot this down,
Thanks again for the great development - and cheers!
Comment 65 Luke Hutchison 2011-04-30 23:31:39 UTC
Annotation note popup windows don't work yet for the following annotated PDF file, using evince-3.0.0-1.fc15.x86_64 and poppler-0.16.4-1.fc15.x86_64:

http://web.mit.edu/~luke_h/www/Hutchison2011-feedback.pdf

Thanks!
Comment 66 sdaau 2011-05-02 08:05:04 UTC
Hi all, 

Just wanted to say that I got a response from the 'pdfcomment' Latex package developer:

RE: A slight change: pdfcomment annot. for Evince - 
http://developer.berlios.de/forum/message.php?msg_id=80140

> In the PDF Reference the commands \Popup (text 
> annotation) and \Parent (popup annotation) are 
> marked as optional, so they are not needed. Adobe 
> Reader opens a standard size box in height of the 
> annotation at the right border.
> 
> Insisting in the existence of \Popup is a bug, in my 
> eyes at least.

I'm not sure if I should file a separate bug for this, let me know...


@Luke Hutchison: I opened your PDF, and my evince (2.32.0-0ubuntu12) shows some icons, but the popups will not open - which I believe is a similar problem, with the insistence on evince on \Popup that is mentioned here. However, I can't see any of your annotations in Side Pane - annotations; if you run evince from the command line, you'll get: "(evince:23371): WARNING **: Unimplemented annotation: POPPLER_ANNOT_CARET" etc; I believe currently in evince, there is only the "Note" annotation which is supported..
Comment 67 looreenzoo 2011-11-08 15:42:13 UTC
Are there any news with regard to highlighting? Thank you in advance!
Comment 68 Adorilson Bezerra 2011-11-23 17:31:47 UTC
Any news?
I would like to see this feature at next versions.
Comment 69 kxra 2011-12-21 18:20:05 UTC
This would make for a great GSoC project no? 

Is there any way I can help as a non-coder?
Comment 70 José Aliste 2011-12-21 18:56:30 UTC
This would be great for GSoC project for an intern already involved with Evince and/or pdf. The pdf spec is quite involved, and so, probably not so easy to grasp in time for a GSoC student, if you can get someone interested in applying for work on this as a GSoc, probably, the good thing to do is to ping people in irc channel #evince (irc.gimp.net) and get involved as soon as possible, so there is some time before to get into speed of things like pdf spec.
Comment 71 Arne Ko 2012-01-23 19:09:08 UTC
Hi there,
I just found about about this feature after doing some research for about an hour (the second time within a month...)

Annotation works great! Thank you, a million times!

BUT: Why is this feature so well hidden? After I learned that this feature is already implemented (after the first time I did the research, when I tried compiling evince from source, but failed due to missing dependencies), today I was pretty sure the feature should be THERE in my version, but it was not after I found Carlos Garcia's blog with a short video, when I also learned where to find it. How about a simple "right button->Add annotation"???

That would be great!

Arne
Comment 72 Adorilson Bezerra 2012-01-23 20:51:31 UTC
It's great.

But what Evince version this was release?

And the Carlos Garcia's blog with the video is[0].

[0] http://blogs.igalia.com/carlosgc/2010/07/26/adding-new-annotations-with-evince/
Comment 73 Miguel 2013-01-25 09:08:47 UTC
A year after the last comment...what is the current status on this?

Are there any plans to integrate this into evince soon?
Comment 74 mateolan 2013-01-30 22:58:52 UTC
Those interested in having annotations more accessible may be interested in the discussion at Bug 692655
Comment 75 Germán Poo-Caamaño 2013-02-18 08:19:43 UTC
*** Bug 595589 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 76 David 2014-09-19 04:40:06 UTC
Evince 2.32 has annotations, but I can't move or delete them if I put them in the wrong spot or accidentally cover a word. Is there a a trick to removing them or am I the only one having this problem?
Comment 77 José Aliste 2014-09-20 08:29:28 UTC
the trick is to use evince 3.14 which will be released in some days... older versions including 3.12 dont have support for removing annotations.
Comment 78 surabhi 2014-10-27 18:05:55 UTC
does the latest upcoming version 3.14 has the feature of highlighting  the text ,if not then i want to work on this bug.
Comment 79 Germán Poo-Caamaño 2014-10-27 18:20:46 UTC
(In reply to comment #78)
> does the latest upcoming version 3.14 has the feature of highlighting  the text
> ,if not then i want to work on this bug.

Bug 583377 is used to track highlighting annotations.
Comment 80 José Aliste 2014-10-27 18:54:43 UTC
surabi, the work is mostly completed. We will try to get it merged for 3.16
Comment 81 surabhi 2015-01-02 07:33:43 UTC
Sure , thanx for reply.
Comment 83 Brian J. Murrell 2015-07-30 11:07:49 UTC
So which one of these bugs is representing the ability to superimpose text (in any font or size desired) and graphics onto an arbitrary PDF, such as, for example a form?  To be clear however, I am not talking about an actual PDF fillable form, but rather just any old PDF, where the canonical example would be a form.
Comment 84 giselle 2015-07-30 11:36:16 UTC
For adding free text to a pdf you might want to follow bug 587583, and for graphics it is probably bug 620564.